The insiders story on China's newest 'Occupation' - Purchasing Agents. 关于一个特别的职业，代购的内幕。

Purchasing agents have become an increasingly popular occupation in the last 10 years.
代购是中国近10产生的新兴职业。

So what exactly is a 'purchasing agent'? A person that purchases something on your behalf would be a simple description. Why would a person want someone to make purchases on their behalf? Lots of reasons! For example, if the region / city you live in doesn't have the item you want, or the item is available but priced too high. Other reasons could include saving time if you're extremely busy and have no time to go shopping. It's actually a pretty good service to have someone go buy something for you and have it delivered straight to your doorstep. As people have become more reliant on these purchasing agents for their shopping needs, the occupation has become more and more widespread. Nowadays, there are chinese purchasing agents everywhere in the world buying things left right and centre for their clients in China. Of course, I believe there are purchasing agents in every country. Afterall, as long as there is demand, there is a market. Purchasing agents from other countries are now buying products from China and taking them abroad to the foreign market. With the existence of purchasing agents there's no longer things that you want to buy that you can't obtain.

These pictures are from when I used to be a purchasing agent.
什么是代购呢？当然就是找别人帮你买东西，找别人的原因大概是你所在的地方买不到你想要的东西。或者是当地这件东西的价格很贵，当然也可以节省自己的时间，如果你非常忙，没有时间逛街，找人帮你买好然后送货上门就再方便不过了。当大部分人习惯和依赖上了这种方式，代购就慢慢变成了一个吸金的职业。如今在世界各国都有中国的代购们奔波着为国内的人买东西，当然我相信世界各国都有自己的代购，有需求就会有市场。有不少国外的代购也从中国携带商品带去给国外的市场。有了代购，就没有想买又买不到的东西。这些都是我做代购时候的图片。

The history of purchasing agents starts at around 2005 with the personal purchase agents which came about from students studying abroad or people working abroad who bring presents back to family and friends. Soon, these people were recommended to others who would pay about 10% commission charge for these people to buy things on their behalf. In a blink of an eye, purchasing agents became a craze in China. Whether you're a tourist travelling abroad, a tour guide, or a fight attendent, nothing stopped you from being a purchasing agent as long as you had access to goods which your home country didn't. In many cases, these purchasing agents would buy entire suitcases full of the exact same cosmetic products. Fast forward to 2007 and taobao (now China's largest online marketplace) officially opens its doors to the world allowing people to buy things without having to leave their homes.
Most purchasing agents buying goods abroad would be able to get a rebate on vat or taxes on the products. Shipments to China were also not subject to customs duty so there were already 2 clear financial advantages. It was only until the end of 2014 when laws were passed for customs duty on cross-border e-commerce and at that point, purchasing agents were no longer operating on the grey market. The following years to this day, the purchasing agents have suffered significant drops in their income and at the same time, the number of people travelling to outside of China has continued to grow. Consequently, the competition amongst purchasing agents has naturally increased.
代购在中国的发展史大概是这样的，2005年的个人代购，起源于国外的中国留学生和工作的国人给家人带礼物到给熟人，后来为朋友介绍的人买东西同时收取10%的手续费。一时间代购这个行业在国内受到热捧，同时连在国外旅游，去国外当导游和飞国际航空的空姐都加入了代购行业。有时候他们整箱的代购同一种化妆品。
2007年中国最大的电商网站淘宝网开发了全球购。让所有人不用出门，就能买到想要的东西。之前的代购大部分在国外买东西可以退税，邮寄进中国也不需要关税，所以省了2重税的费用。直到2014年底，中国海关对于跨境电商立了法，代购这个职业才真正不再是灰色收入。之后的几年一直到现在，代购的利润明显下滑，但是出国的人越来越多，所以做代购的人数量得到猛增，市场竞争也变得越来越大。

At the beginning of 2013, I was a purchasing agent for just 1 month. At the time, my friends and family all wanted me to purchase things for them on their behalf and so they encouraged me to try the purchasing agent business. Around that time, there were actually very few Chinese purchasing agents in the UK, so as soon as I send my catalog out to my social network channels, I would get a really good reponse from customers. In just one month's time, I was able to make a net profit of nearly 3,000 GBP.
Below are some pictures of my days as a purchasing agent and some of the things I sold.
在2013年初，我当过1个月的代购。因为家里人和朋友都需要我带东西，所以他们鼓励我做起了代购。因为当时在英国做代购的中国人非常少，所以我在社交平台随便一发，就引来了大量的顾客。短短20天的代购，我的净利润就达到快3千磅，下面是当时代购的图片。

A number of reasons contributed to my decision to stop being a purchasing agent. One, was that I did not operate a brick-and-mortar business and under a registered company. Shipping the goods back to China was also extremely expensive. Aside from that, as a purchasing agent, I am expected to treat my clients well and give them the best customer service. My day would be spent taking many pictures of all the different potential items for sale, then, I would update social media with my catalog. Everyday, I would purchase a large amount of stock as well as ship out a large number of orders. With England being an 8 hour time difference from China, keeping reliable contact with my customers basically gave me very little time to sleep. It's actually a very tough job with high pressure.
当时停止了代购，是觉得做这样的跨境贸易也没有注册实体店没有规范，就连英国的邮费成本也是极其的贵，所以很难长久，而且帮别人买东西就像服务业，是非常辛苦的，每天都要去商场大量的拍照，在社交网站做宣传，每天都要买大量的货，之后要打包发货，并且英国的时差和中国是8小时，为了回复客户留言，晚上是基本不能睡觉的，当时的一个人很难承受这样大的压力。

At that time, there were many brands that were absent of any stores in China and as a result, the demand for these brands was enormous. Business was very good. I remember there was one time where I posted some items on taobao which became the number one sales volume on the site. Nowadays, nearly every brand has stores littered all across China and there is nothing you can't buy domestically. For those who care about buying products and saving a little bit of money, purchasing agents are still an option. I know one purchasing agent who started up around the same time as I did now has a monthly profit of up to 50,000 GBP. Still, I don't regret quitting, especially knowing that most purchasing agents rely on a number of dirty trick of some sort to gain that competitive edge.
那时候在中国，有很多品牌是没有专卖店的，所以需求量极大，生意非常火爆，我记得我贴在淘宝上的商品曾经是在销量榜榜首的位置。当然现在在中国基本什么都能买到了，只是价格稍稍有差别，很多人为了买到便宜的东西还是会找代购。记得当时和我同时间开始做的代购，现在的每月纯利润已经达到50万人民币，不过我也不后悔我停止了代购，必须知道了一些黑幕就感觉没有做下去的必要了。

To this day, I still have many friends and classmates who still work as purchasing agents. Profit margins are becoming razor thin as there are so many agents now all competing for business and the supply of goods remains largely limited. A friend of mine in the UK is able to get a 20% tax duty rebate all year round for her purchases, she also has deals with stores that allow her to groupon buy and save another 20%. The caveats are that for any given brand, she will have to make a purchase of atleast 20 of the same items. In London's premier luxury department store, Harrods, you can receive a 10% discount if you buy an item and have it sent to Hong Kong immediately. With all these cheeky ways to cut base cost and improve profit margins, the prices of products offered by the agents are now lower than ever. Many agents are driven by competition to selling fake goods to help maintain acceptable profits. I've seen with my own eyes some agents who have cracked under pressure and begun selling fake goods. With such fierce competition and no opportunity for building client relationships, the purchasers will just shop around for the agent that offers the cheapest prices and go with them. It's for this reason that many agents now sell real and fake goods mixed in between. Furthermore, some agents will pick on clients in second tier cities who have never seen the authentic goods before. Knowing this, the agents send the fake goods abroad first, then back to the customer and the customer would have no reason to doubt its authenticity.
现在我还有很多朋友，同学都在做代购，虽然利润很低了，由于做代购的人数非常多，所以价格的竞争，货源的竞争相当激烈。我的朋友在英国常年可以拿到工作的退税20%,例如买高跟鞋，我的朋友就需要和店家谈好团购得价格，例如一次买20双同一牌子的鞋子可以拿到20%的折扣。在伦敦的大型商场，harrods也有这样的规则，东西买完直接发回香港可以享受10%的免税。就这样代购的价格在不停的竞争下变得越来越低，甚至让有些代购不得不拿一些假货来得到利润的空间，填补货源的缺失。我亲眼见到有一些代购慢慢走上卖假货的不归路，因为没有实体店客源没有保障，被宣传吸引的顾客大多是来比价的，根本不会有人真的要买东西。甚至一些代购玩起了真假混买的游戏，对于一些中国二线城市的顾客，代购知道那些城市没有实体店所以没见过正品，他们就把假货寄到国外再假装寄回来中国，这样没有人会发有问题。

So, that's it! An insiders story on Chinese purchasing agents. How do we go about resolving the issues?
这就是中国的代购职业，怎么样才能解决这样一个特殊的境况呢？