New | Shopping agents strip Sydney's shelves of baby milk powder amid Singles Day shopping frenzy

Strong demand from Chinese parents for Australian baby formula prompted shopping agents in Sydney to strip shelves bare as they prepared for the world’s biggest online shopping festival on Wednesday.

The agents, usually Chinese nationals living overseas, typically stockpile the products and sell them at a profit to mainland buyers.

The Singles Day shopping festival has raked in sales worth four times the amount of the United States’ Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined last year. The US earnings were more than US$3 billion last year.

“There has been an acute shortage of baby formula here. Some agents were taken away by police,” said Li Zhi, a shopping agent in Sydney.

The Sydney Morning Herald previously quoted a senior executive at Bellamy’s, an Australian baby food brand, as saying that the upcoming shopping event had intensified the bulk buying, which caused an “extreme shortage” of its products.

Local customers were also pressuring Woolworths, a major supermarket in Australia, to adopt strict limits on baby formula so as to guarantee supply for Australian babies.