New | China’s ‘replacement shopping’ business suffers as customs tightens checks on imported goods
Stepped-up enforcement of import regulations may spell the end to some ‘daigou’ overseas online shopping agents’ careers
China’s tightening of customs inspections on imported goods bought by individual shoppers is expected to deal a blow to its massive “daigou” industry, the practice of shopping on behalf of someone else.
Office lady Chen Xin, from Suzhou, Jiangsu province, has been working as a daigou, or shopping agent, in her leisure time for three years now. Each month, she buys several boxes of cosmetics and personal care products from Amazon and other shopping websites in Japan, the United States and Britain, and resells them to others at prices 10 to 15 per cent higher.
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In September, Chen made the same purchases on shopping sites in Japan and Britain, buying five boxes of shampoo, bath oils and cosmetics. But this time, her goods ended up stuck in the city’s customs office, with the logistics company saying only that all the packages were “under customs checks”.
What I bought cost just 3,000 yuan. How is it that they are charging me 50 per cent tax?
After a month-long wait, Chen finally received a call from her local post office last Friday, informing her to pick up the parcels. But she was told to pay nearly 1,500 yuan (HK$1,800) on personal postal articles taxes.
“This never happened before,” she said. “What I bought cost just 3,000 yuan. How is it that they are charging me 50 per cent tax?”
Just once or twice over the past three years, Chen said, she was charged a 10 per cent duty on the claimed price of the products. And the delivery period was never longer than about two weeks, whether the goods were arriving from Europe or North America, she said.
“With such high taxes, it’s impossible for me to find buyers. I have no choice but to return the goods to the sellers,” Chen said.
Chen’s case is not the only one. Over the past month, complaints against tightened customs inspection rules have risen among mainland shoppers who ordered goods from abroad.
On Weibo, discussions on international packages “detained” by customs offices in cities including Suzhou, Nanjing, Qingdao and Shenzhen, have drawn many comments.
Some said it now took a much longer time for their packages to arrive, while others said customs officers had asked them to pay taxes or even return the goods. Some posted pictures of large warehouses filled with piles of postal parcels, which they said were taken at the customs’ warehouses.
But a number of shopping agents in the coastal cities said they had not experienced any inconvenience in receiving their imported parcels.
In an official reply to media last week, the General Administration of Customs said it had not implemented any special measures in dealing with international parcels by daigou agents. All the inspection measures, it said, are based on existing customs regulations.
China’s daigou business has been booming in recent years, boosted by mainland consumers’ growing appetite for high-quality food and daily products at lower prices.
Global consultancy Bain & Co estimated the market size of the daigou business last year was between 55 and 75 billion yuan (HK$67 and 91 billion).
Hot items on agents’ shopping list include luxury products from Europe, baby milk powder from New Zealand, diapers from Japan, nutritional supplements from the United States and skincare products and cosmetics from South Korea.
And the market is still growing. Customs statistics show that the number of international parcels through mainland post offices, including import and export, reached 430 million between January and September, up 66 per cent from a year ago. A key driver is the daigou business.
Now, customs officers in many port cities are ... opening up every parcel to check and verify the claimed information on them
To bring down costs, many agents choose to receive their products as “self-use imported goods” to avoid paying higher taxes for them. Such items levy a 10 to 50 per cent tax on goods worth more than 50 yuan, according to customs regulations.
Parcels to and from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan that are valued at more than 800 yuan or heavier than 5kg would not be regarded as self-use items and would be returned back to their place of origin. The cap for parcels to and from other countries is 1,000 yuan.
A source at a Guangzhou logistics firm said the customs administration had last month instructed local customs offices to beef up inspection on imported parcels and to enforce existing regulations.
“In the past, customs officers tended to turn a blind eye on imported parcels, which were often claimed at a much lower value than they really were,” said the source on condition of anonymity.
“But now, customs officers in many port cities are working closely with local postal offices, opening up every parcel to check and verify the claimed information on them.”
“But not every port is the same. Coastal cities are usually stricter than inland places. So sometimes we will ship our goods via inland ports despite the longer distance.”
Lin Fan, chief operation officer of Shenzhen-based transit company Zhuanyunbang, has also noticed the change.
Customs officers were now also more closely inspecting imported goods in free-trade zones, through which many daigou agents prefer to receive their products such as baby milk powder and diapers.
“In the past, the customs would not tax a package of four cans of formula. But now the cap has been lowered to two cans,” Lin said. “We expect the customs inspection on direct postal parcels to become increasingly rigid as the central government regulates the cross-border online shopping market to boost the business of big domestic e-commerce operators.”
A few weeks ago, Chen Xin joined a WeChat discussion that has attracted more than 120 overseas shoppers with similar online shopping experience.
“I learned that my case is not the worst one. Some people have been waiting longer. Now I really want to know if this will be a long-term situation or if it was just a one-off case. I need to know if this is the end of my daigou career,” she said.
