Chinese want luxury but will forego brand names if price is right, says e-commerce retailer Biyao

Chinese shoppers are quickly warming to cheaper goods that offer luxury quality despite a long-running national obsession with designer logos and easy-to-flaunt status symbols, according to Chinese e-commerce site Biyao. 

The company, a customer to manufacturer (C2M) platform, claims to have seen traffic surge in the first three months of its operation. 

“If you call China the world’s manufacturer, Biyao is a global platform offering customers the best price for luxury quality goods, ” Biyao CEO Bi Sheng said in Beijing on Thursday. 

The website has attracted more than three million users since May as Chinese shoppers’ purchasing power grows and the public’s tastes mature, it said.

Bi, who formerly served as a vice president at China’s leading search engine Baidu, said it took his team almost one and a half years to win over designers and manufacturers of luxury goods.

By cutting out the big brands and other middle-men, he can now offer goods of comparable quality for a significantly cheaper price, sometimes as low as 10 per cent of what a similar name-branded garment or accessory would cost, he said.