Daigous remain a menace for luxury brands. Even though their activity is appears to be getting smaller, the turnover volume produced is still high. How much? While monitoring just 5 types of handbags on Taobao during the month of February (the one month of Chinese New Year and S. Valentine celebrations), daigous have allegedly sold goods for 28 million yuan (3.6 million euro). ReHub published the Daigou Index Report, according to which “luxury brands cannot afford to ignore the phenomenon”.
Daigous remain a menace
Given the large size of their parallel market, their influence over pricing and image policies of the brand, the threat is that they will be selling counterfeited goods. There are the main elements regarding the daigous, that are causing concern. ReHub collaborated with startup SimplyBrand to evaluate the impacts of daigous on luxury brands in China. The AI algorithms identified over 28,000 product cards on Taobao. During the month of February just 5 types of handbags were observed: Marmont by Gucci, Box by Celine, Puzzle by Loewe, Hourglass by Balenciaga and Hobo by Prada. Gucci’s Maymont was the most sold, with 1,980 units and a value of 12.5 million yuan (1.6 million euro). Overall, almost 4,000 handbags were sold, for a value of over 28 million yuan (3.6 million euro).
The tip of the iceberg
“Registered sales are only the tip of the iceberg”, writes ReHub. The multitude of products placed with no sales makes ReHub think that “the majority of transactions by daigous are done outside of the main e-commerce platforms”. Daigous, in fact, move consumers to their private channels, such as WeChat. This means that the potential transaction isn’t traceable. ReHub found out, by monitoring the real product prices with the average one offered by daigous, that given the high difference of price points the products being sold are counterfeited.
Read also:
