In world’s largest electronics market, beauty products now outsell phone parts

Huaqiangbei market in Shenzhen, southern China, used to sell electronics parts and knock-off phones. Now MAC lipsticks and Bioderma cleansers line its shelves

Under pressure from big brands and anti-piracy laws, it switched almost overnight to selling beauty and skincare products, and business is booming

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Cosmetics sellers in Mingtong Digital City market in Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei area. Photo: Reuters/David Kirton

Published: 10:15am, 22 Nov 2020Updated: 6:09pm, 23 Nov 2020

It’s 10pm in the world’s largest electronics market, and lines of delivery workers who once hauled computer components and knock-off phones now push carts overflowing with MAC lipsticks, Bioderma cleansers and other foreign beauty brands.

The electronics sellers for which Huaqiangbei is famous have mostly gone home, but the wholesale cosmetics merchants crammed into 1,400 stalls in the sprawling market’s Mingtong Digital City will be working until 2am to meet the booming demand.

“It doesn’t matter what promotions are happening, it’s this busy every night,” a seller surnamed Ying said on a recent weeknight.

Ying opened her cosmetics stall three months ago, part of a sudden makeover at the landmark electronics market in the famously entrepreneurial city.

Boxes of cosmetics are unloaded at Mingtong Digital City in the Huaqiangbei market in Shenzhen. Photo: Reuters/David Kirton

Huaqiangbei is home to dozens of multistorey malls housing about 38,000 businesses that historically sold microchip reels and other components. It is also a matchmaking hub for global companies looking to get things made in nearby factories.