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A daigou is a personal shopper who buys items to send back to people in China, usually for a significant markup. This is a cheaper alternative for Chinese buyers to purchase products around the world. Especially products so in demand in their home country that they often can't be purchased. Like decent quality milk powder produced by Australia. This has caused problems with locals in Australia with hundreds of tins of baby formula being purchased by Chinese daigou to be sent back to China. These daigou can strip shelves of milk powder in minutes. While supermarkets have responded with limiting the number of tins a person can buy per purchase this has failed as the daigou simply go straight back in to purchase more. In response, the Australian public now records videos of these Chinese shoppers stripping the shelves of baby formula then posts to social media. Australia is well known for giving anyone a fair go but there are limits.
Ever think of robbing a store but stopped thinking "what if I'm seen?". Cameras are everywhere. Just about everyone has one in their pocket. Powered up, hours of free space, a phone unlock and camera app start away from filming. YouTube and Facebook have made it easy to share videos for free. Anyone can do it. Now they are. When over 30 daigou recently went on a baby formula buying spree in Brisbane, Shane Conroy captured the raid on video to post to Facebook. The footage has since been viewed half a million times with thousands of shares. The situation with foreign shoppers stripping shelves is only getting worse. The public is now stepping up to record these incidents to post them online to publicly name and shame these people as laws and rules are ineffective.
Is it better when Big Brother is not a central authority but instead is implemented by the people, themselves?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @01:55PM (11 children)
I don't see much of a problem. These daigou are following the law, they are buying the products, they are not stealing it. I'm not sure they follow all export/import rules, but that's for customs to check.
Some reservation system set up by the shops can prevent customers not getting what they need, I doubt the shops have a big problem with their shelves getting bought up. The customers can just also ask these daigou to buy one extra for them, might be worthwhile for both as well.
If the australian milk powder is in high demand and can be sold with a high markup in China, than I expect some Australian business will be eager to fill the gap?
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Wednesday January 02 2019, @02:40PM (3 children)
I'm thinking the problem is supply, due to farm regulations. It is common for "western" countries to both subsidize and also limit production of agricultural products, to try to prop up the price. So I'm guessing dairy subsidies are limited based on some government formula of how many cows "should" be required to fill demand? Formulas which of course do not take into account the demand of a billion Chinese people wanting baby formula which won't kill their children? (Wanting your child not to die from adulterated formula seems pretty reasonable to me...)
Here we finally have a type of product where "Made in China" is not advantageous! "Western" countries should be taking advantage of this! Unfortunately they are probably shooting themselves in the foot instead because of a century old tangle of political giveaways.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @02:55PM (2 children)
Far more likely answer is protectionist importation laws in China.
China likes to sell to foreigners, not buy from them, if it is at all possible.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:01PM (1 child)
That is certainly true but doesn't explain the apparent lack of supply of these products. Chinese people seem adept at avoiding their own country's regulations in this regard.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:03PM
By "lack of supply" I mean in "western" countries and also HK.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:27PM (5 children)
From my experience in retail, typically the stores don't want this to happen because the items in question are highly desirable. It's not just about sales on any one item that make a store function.
For example, the target item is a commodity: highly desirable, widely available, and competitively priced. Your margin has to be very narrow on the item to compete, but it drives customers to your store because of your aggressive pricing, which gives them a chance to buy higher margin items during their visit. Very few customers buy only one thing and leave.
However, if someone comes along and buys all of the target item:
* You don't make a lot of money, because you had a razor thin margin, due to your competitive pricing on the item. The people buying your entire stock of one thing are not likely to buy a substantial amount of anything else.
* Your other visitors that come for the item are frustrated, because there's none left for their main wanted item, so they buy nothing else and your store moves down the list of places they want to check next time. That's less total sales in the long run.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:49PM
Similar things happen domestically with fad foods. In the late 1980s it was "oat bran" - anything with oat bran flew off store shelves faster than it could be stocked. The problem was that demand spiked based on a mass media news blitz about the supposed health benefits of oat bran, and the supply chain took nearly a year to ramp up production to meet demand - also, I think the supply chain was sluggish to respond, and non responsive in some cases, because of the opinion that this would just be a fad and quickly die out, leaving tons of oat bran products stuck in warehouses for years if they over-responded to the initial demand spike.
Something like baby formula isn't an easy thing to ramp up and down production rates for, and sale of expired baby formula is even more problematic than stale cookies. The daigou are a grey, if not black, market operation and likely subject to wild swings in throughput due to regulatory actions. The more formalized their supply channels become, the easier it will be for Chinese regulators to clamp down on them, so it's likely that they will continue to operate as "shopping tourists" for the foreseeable future, and their shopping patterns will likely remain highly chaotic in an attempt to avoid regulation.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:57PM
And if all the stores get bought dry by foreigners because of fucked up conditions in their homeland, that leads to tensions if the locals can't buy anymore for themselves. Hong Kong has instituted an export limit for baby formula, and I thought Australia was instituting one too.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday January 02 2019, @04:02PM (2 children)
That's why one would raise prices on that one particular item in demand. You might not sell as much of it, or lose a little on it due to a supply-price mismatch, but the people who really want your full shopping experience (item plus other stuff) will come to your store and buy the other stuff and Chain Y down the street will suffer for being out of it. You don't want to be the cheapest price on such an item; instead, you want to be second cheapest.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday January 02 2019, @07:42PM (1 child)
Which makes consumer's anger at the daigou rational. Naturally they don't want rising prices and shrinking availability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 03 2019, @08:41AM
But is this not exactly what capitalism teaches us, with all the suppy and demand balacing each other out? Surely the consumers are aware to have embraced such concepts freely, are they not?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 03 2019, @01:01PM
Law != justice, law != morals, law != ethics