China’s band of daigou shoppers turn to domestic sales after coronavirus halts overseas trips for luxury goods
- Daigou women, small-time buyers who would traditionally travel abroad on shopping trips for customers, have been forced to shift to domestic purchases by the coronavirus
- President Xi Jinping announced the so-called dual circulation strategy earlier this year, with the plan placing a greater focus on the domestic market
The women, known as daigou, are small-time buying agents who would traditionally travel abroad on shopping trips for their customers. The job took off in the last few years in China amid strong demand for foreign goods among wealthy and upper middle-class families.
The women, though, feared they would be hit hard with coronavirus-related travel curbs potentially causing them to lose most of their crucial social media followers.
But they soon found that when they banded together, they could transform themselves into sellers of high-quality Chinese products.
In August, a group of several dozen daigou in their 20s and 30s flew to a small jade factory near the China-Myanmar border and spent several days helping local suppliers sell over 8 million yuan (US$1.2 million) worth of jade jewellery.
At first we thought the daigou group was finished because we couldn’t go overseas and shop
“At first we thought the daigou group was finished because we couldn’t go overseas and shop. Some sisters have already switched to insurance sales, some went into clerical work,” said Hunan province native Zhang Ting, the leader of the group that calls themselves Halo B.T. women.