'daigou' suitcase shoppers decrease substantially, page-4

But its still big business sez this piece published a month ago:

Chinese-Australian entrepreneurs shopping their way to wealth via the ‘suitcase trade’

EXCLUSIVE Jennifer Sexton, The Daily Telegraph
September 6, 2016 12:00am
Subscriber only

THE “suitcase trade” in Australian goods into China has turned professional with 40,000 personal shoppers generating up to $1 million in sales a year of Weetbix, vitamins and infant formula to increasingly rich consumers.
However, the old model of Australian supermarkets and pharmacies being the source of products is being replaced by Chinese-Australian entrepreneurs opening warehouses and gift shops specialising in packaging up small parcels for consumers that bypass customs’ import restrictions in China.
Hundreds of stores selling to “Daigou” — people who fill orders for their own personal network of Chinese consumers — are popping up all over Sydney.
These outlets undercut supermarkets and pharmacies on price and do the packaging and mailing for the Daigou.

Susan Tao in her Kingsford warehouse in Kingsford / Picture: Kristi Miller
Daigou, often students or businesspeople from China, ship between 30 and 50 orders a week and earn about $40,000 a year, said Livia Wang, who runs AccessCN, a company that specialises in Daigou networking.
“The biggest earn $1 million and do a container a week. Those guys have lots of agents in China who might sell direct to Chinese clients or via a website,” Ms Wang said.
Jessica Xu, 26, is one entrepreneur who in a few years has built a thriving business employing 15 people and offering 2000 products from Australia and New Zealand. She ships 500 orders a day to thousands of customers from a warehouse in Regents Park.
Ms Xu, who studied commerce at Macquarie University, grew tired of relatives and friends loading her with orders for Jurlique cosmetics, infant formula and vitamins.
“I thought, ‘Why not do this as a business’? That’s why we have this warehouse. We have an order system, payment system and a logistics system.”

Jessica Xu / Picture: Chris Pavlich
Products are mostly sourced from the manufacturer or a wholesaler, which means less conflict with local consumers, she said. “If you clear out the supermarket, where will local mothers buy the product?”
Susan Tao, who markets her business on Chinese social media, runs three shops and a warehouse.
But new limits on tax-free parcels entering China have led to a drop in orders. A parcel of goods worth more than $400 is now subject to full import duty, she said. Orders are packed in small parcels to bypass the scrutiny of customs.
Ms Wang said Daigou were popular because the Chinese did not trust the authenticity of products sourced in China.
“They don’t trust the products they get in China so the direct parcel model has really contributed a lot to building Australian brands,” Ms Wang said.

Susan Tao / Picture: Kristi Miller
WE BUY ANYTHING WE LIKE OVERSEAS

Jennifer Sexton
ASK Sybil Chen what she buys from overseas and she laughs. “Everything.”
At her four-storey townhouse in a rich suburb in China, Ms Chen adds that when it comes to her two-year-old daughter, Dou Dou, price is no impediment.
“Her food, toys, shoes, everything comes from Daigou,” says the 29-year-old. Daigou are Chinese located overseas who personally shop and package up products to send back to Chinese consumers like Ms Chen.
Ms Chen uses Daigou because she wants to access authentic, high-quality products which will enhance her health and that of her daughter and husband, a policeman.
Ms Chen, who lives 10 minutes from the centre of China’s economic powerhouse Shenzhen and works as a producer at a television station, buys Lucas Pawpaw ointment, A2 milk powder, Weet-Bix and a variety of beef and even fresh vegetables from Australia.
“In China they are not making very good things,” says Ms Chen, whose mother is one of the most highly regarded professionals of Chinese medicine in Shenzhen.

Sybil Chen with daughter Dou Dou / Picture: Jennifer Sexton
After the death of a number of Chinese babies two years ago from poisoned baby formula, sourcing pure product from trusted manufacturers has never been so important for Chinese mothers.
“Australia makes very good products and the environment is better than here. People there make products and they put more heart into it.
“Most of the industries here, they just want to earn more money. So Australia is better. It’s not poisoned.
“I think more than 50 per cent of parents (in China) buy from Daigou.
“Some people who don’t have money will buy the cheaper Chinese brands. But if they have money they will buy from Daigou.”
Ms Chen was just 16 when she moved by herself to New Zealand, living in a home stay to complete high school before later studying education and psychology at university.
“When I was studying I bring some things, some presents back. After I came back I would need to use that product so I asked some friends, some Daigou, to bring for me. Now we have many apps to buy the products.”
One of her favourites clearly states the country of origin for each product.
“We buy products from all over the world. Dairy products, we mostly buy from New Zealand and Australia. Cosmetics from France.”
POP-UPS BEAT LIMITS ON BABY FORMULA EXPORTS TO CHINA

Jim O’Rourke
HUNDREDS of kilos of baby formula are being shipped to China each week through a series of pop-up shops scattered across Sydney’s inner west.
The retailers in Ashfield, Burwood and Marrickville shopping precincts offer customers “pack-and-send” deals, allowing them to buy tins of the powdered product in bulk, have them packaged up in cardboard boxes and sent directly to China.
In China, the formula, which retails here for up to $30 for a 900g tin, is then onsold for up to four times the original price.
Demand for Australian infant formula skyrocketed after a 2008 melamine contamination scandal in China caused the deaths of six babies and made 300,000 sick.
The poisoning resulted in a rush on formula stocked by local supermarkets, forcing Coles and Woolworths to place a maximum limit on the number of tins sold to each customer.
Woolworths is still limiting the number of cans to four tins per transaction.
But the pop-ups are buying up to 10 tins at a time while still avoiding rigorous export rules on dairy product packages.
While the Federal Department of Agriculture is investigating reports of illegal formula exports to China, it said in a statement it did not have the power to limit the purchase of formula in supermarkets or other outlets: “These are commercial arrangements between retailers and the manufacturers of infant formula.”

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