Jeff Meng, a 25-year-old watch lover from a well-heeled family in China’s Guangdong province, had 160,000 yuan (US$22,800) burning a hole in his pocket. He could not find the Rolex Daytona watch he wanted, dubbed “panda” for its black-and-white face, anywhere in China. The coronavirus pandemic has halted travel and disrupted networks of parallel importers, so Chinese high-end shoppers like Meng – who collectively spend US$111 billion a year on luxury goods – are finding it hard to spend their cash. Global luxury houses from Balenciaga to Montblanc have been forced to rethink how to reach consumers in China, despite their long-standing concerns about counterfeiters and powerful e-commerce platforms that set the rules. The halt to travel is also fuelling the rise of a second-hand luxury market in China as consumers seek certain styles or models they can’t find in local shops. Before the pandemic, two-thirds of Chinese luxury purchases were made overseas, according to consultancy Bain. The spending took place either on shopping-spree holidays or via resellers called “ daigou ”. Meaning to “buy on behalf”, daigou are Chinese people living, studying or travelling abroad who buy sought-after goods from boutiques in Europe or the United States and bring them or send them to China. “Now, travel is impossible, and daigou sellers are either back [in mainland China] or stranded in Europe,” Meng says. “The pandemic made me realise you can’t easily get what you fancy in China.” Cognisant of the potential of Chinese consumers who don’t travel overseas, luxury houses had already been rolling out plans to expand on the mainland. The pandemic has now hastened that shift and imbued it with urgency. With other factors like perceived anti-Chinese racism in Western countries exacerbated by the coronavirus outbreak that was first observed in China, and the Chinese government’s desire to bring spending home to boost its ailing economy, it is unlikely Chinese luxury buyers will revert to previous patterns after the crisis passes. More than half of Chinese purchases of luxury goods will be in China by 2025, Bain estimated in May, compared to a third in 2019. “Chinese feel unsafe in foreign countries, which is why they consume at home,” says Amrita Banta, managing director at luxury consultancy Agility Research. “Brands should increase importing from foreign countries into China and offer a wider and well-priced range. They can now expand their reach to more cities – even smaller towns which have a propensity to spend.” With China having largely contained its Covid-19 epidemic, including a new outbreak in Beijing last month, shoppers are spending again. This is expected to boost the luxury market in China by as much as 10 per cent this year, compared with a 45 per cent plunge globally, according to estimates by Boston Consulting Group. “Things are normal again internally, and we are seeing the results throughout our stores,” Richemont chairman Johann Rupert says of China, where it has about 460 boutiques. “But they’re not travelling. Nobody is travelling. And until people feel sufficiently safe, I doubt that we will return to a pre-Covid stage.” Brands like Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Chloe have started using live-streaming to push products in China , a popular style of social commerce which uses an influencer who speaks live to audiences for hours at a time, promoting and trying items. I realise it’s so nice that I can try on the clothes in [local] shopping centres, and salespeople treat me as a long-term client instead of just a tourist Michelle Zhang, finance executive from Fuzhou In May, Swiss watch exports to China fell 55 per cent from a year ago, according to industry data, largely because of supply bottlenecks. “Due to the travel curbs during the pandemic, all the consumption power is locked inside China, so our sales there are growing,” says Alain Lam, finance director of Oriental Watch, a high-end watch seller with 46 stores in mainland China. “But the supply is very tight, as Swiss factories are not yet fully returned to work.” Chinese shoppers desperate for certain items are turning to second-hand luxury platforms to buy them, fuelling a surge of investment in start-ups offering the services. Meng finally found his “panda” Rolex watch on a platform called Ponhu (Beijing) Technology. Sales of second-hand luxury goods on JD.com’s used-goods platform Paipai jumped 138 per cent during the 18 days of its annual summer sale period in June compared with a year ago – a record 300 Rolex watches changed hands. The demand for luxury watches , in particular, is because of the delay of new stock supply to Chinese retail stores, says Paipai’s luxury business manager Tony Yao. Some Chinese consumers say that the pandemic has unexpectedly shifted their perspective: they have found shopping domestically can be convenient and pleasant in comparison to infrequent holidays or daigou platforms with no-returns policies. “I realise it’s so nice that I can try on the clothes in the shopping centres, and salespeople treat me as a long-term client instead of just a tourist,” says Michelle Zhang, a finance executive from Fuzhou, in Fujian province. “Even after global travel resumes, I will continue to shop more at home.”