With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1388249
40 BCBUSINESS JULY/AUGUST 2021 ISTOCK Like almost every daigou shopper, Zlatan buys for a network of people who became his customers through personal references—something they prefer to going to a nameless platform, to ensure they're getting authentic luxury brands. And because he specializes in one product, the process is simpler. "Many new customers are introduced to me by old customers who have trust in me," Zlatan says. "Based on this good foun- dation, it is easy to make a deal and won't take too much time." An industry built on trust But the pandemic, plus the recently intro- duced controls in China, have added hur- dles for daigou shoppers, even those with a relatively friction-free process like Zlatan. "The COVID-19 pandemic affects all indus- tries, including daigou," he says. "The main effect is that there are far fewer flights than before, which impacts the efficiency and speed of logistics." Calgary resident Jayden Yow, who ran a Facebook page for a company he had cre- ated called Canada Daigou Agency, says his business is now defunct. "I think the trend now is everybody is buying online for themselves." International stories have documented the decline of daigou buying during the pandemic and even predicted that it will die off entirely, as more retail outlets offer simpler online shopping options and bet- ter prices. That's what Yolanda thinks of her future. "I am not optimistic about the industry's prospects because it is born out of the needs of a special period. Especially after the introduction of China's e-com- merce law in 2019, the industry has been strictly regulated and cracked down on." She sees others quitting. "Many American daigou around me are out of business. Hong Kong daigou have no business because Hong Kong customs is closed." But still others think the demand will persist and that daigou will morph into new strategies. International retail observers say that big companies, which often avoided any connections with daigou before, could very likely start relying on that network to enhance and sell brands. Also, they predict, Chinese buyers will keep looking for trusted shoppers rather than just going to online platforms. "China is and will remain a huge market with a strong demand for authentic and high-value goods. The daigou industry is built on trust, with consumers in China placing their trust in their personal shoppers overseas to source and ship authentic products," writes Australian professor Haiqing Yu, who specializes in Chinese digital media and culture. "Daigou-based parallel trading can be under- stood as a contemporary type of shuttle trading in the era of social commerce 2.0, which is user-driven, characterized by community and global crowdsourcing." As for those still working at this shadow job locally, they're adapting. Tan says she has kept sending products to China in spite of the new taxes and rules there. She just makes sure not to include the price of anything on the waybill. And she relies on the fact that there's too much package traffic for the Chinese authorities to moni- tor everything. "I don't think customs will look at all the packages," Tan says. "In fact, I don't know whether customs will open your box to see what is inside." n Tan has kept sending products to China in spite of the new taxes and rules there. She just makes sure not to include the price of anything on the waybill. And she relies on the fact that there's too much package traffic for the Chinese authorities to monitor