Young Chinese are looking for dupes and substitutes for everything

• Chinese consumers are opting for affordable alternatives across categories to save money.
• The trend, known as paint, it is driven by economic challenges and is popular among young people.
• Consumers are finding cheaper substitutes for luxury goods, everyday items and even healthcare.

Chinese consumers are on a tight budget and don’t just indulge in fashion.

It has now become a trend in China to skimp on almost every category of consumer, from luxury goods to everyday necessities to travel, with cheaper substitutes.

It’s not an entirely new move – because who doesn’t love a good deal? — but its traction seems to have grown over the past year amid China’s economic gloom. Alibaba’s wholesale platform 1688 is a notable beneficiary of the trend, with searches for “paint“rose nearly 2,000 percent year-on-year in January ahead of Chinese New Year, according to local media.

This trend for paint, or “affordable alternative”, the products are particularly popular among young Chinese, who exchange tips on how to spend their money wisely on social media.

The word paint covers a wide range of products, including fakes, counterfeits and products that come from the same factories as their branded counterparts – as long as the price is more affordable than a much higher end product.

It’s most evident in the fashion and beauty sphere, where influencers share tips and savings from scammers.

In a post from Xiaohongshu, China’s answer to Instagram, a content creator revealed that using a complete wisdom can save him nearly 1,000 Chinese yuan, or $140.

Products she’s replaced with dupes that look similar when applied to the face include a foundation from MAC and a popular eye shadow from Bobbi Brown — brands from beauty giant Estée Lauder.

“It sure is nice to use branded stuff, right? Who doesn’t like that big logo? But when it comes to how makeup turns out, how big can it really do? You can see it for yourself,” Yidafu said. , the content creator.

Ping substitution has become a “common strategy” in almost every category, including everyday goods, household goods and even premium or luxury products, MingYii Lai, a strategy consultant at market research firm Daxue, told Business Insider. Consulting from Beijing.

Although it’s about profitability, it’s not just about cheap budgets.

These Prada and Bottega Veneta painted for the Hermès Lindy bag, it cost around 23,000 to 24,000 Chinese yuan, or $3,230 to $3,370—still less than half the price of the Hermes bag.

The prevailing zeitgeist in China is about “pursuing living well while spending less,” Lai said.

As BI reported in August, people in China are buying affordable fashion items from online retail platforms to achieve the old-money aesthetic on the cheap with dupes – which, unlike counterfeits, are cheaper alternatives to the real thing.

The trend comes as China faces a prolonged economic crisis as it emerges from pandemic lockdowns. The world’s second largest economy is facing an epic property crisis, deflation, high youth unemployment and geopolitical tensions.

Going straight to the source

But they are not luxury products that people in China are replacing with more reasonable prices. People are looking for cheaper alternatives to everyday products.

This is especially pronounced because China is practically the world’s original equipment manufacturer. These OEM factories manufacture parts and products for companies who in turn sell them to consumers under their name.

Consumers buy from manufacturers in bulk for value and price on the Alibaba 1688 platform – even for food products.

A search for paint snacks on Xiaohongshu features videos showing more affordable alternatives to popular products, including Lay’s potato chips. Some videos say that alternative replacements come from OEM factories of branded products.

Ruth Jin, 32, a university teaching assistant and part-time counselor, told Business Insider that she recently started buying off-brand clothing from e-commerce apps Taobao and Pinduoduo.

She no longer shops at retail outlets for designer dresses.

“Off-brand retailers usually copy branded items, such as my dresses. I would look for the branded item first, then scan online to see if there are cheaper non-branded ones,” she said.

Travel, education and health tricks

Chinese consumers also substitute travel, education and even medical experience.

Travelers “find that some domestic landscapes offer a comparable experience to international ones,” Lai said.

This Xiaohongshu post from a tour company lists locations in mainland China that are painted at some international hotspots.

These include the city of Ili in Xinjiang, where there are lavender fields just like in Provence, France, and Xishuangbanna prefecture – which borders Laos and Myanmar – as an alternative to Bangkok.

In Xishuangbanna, there is an architecture similar to that of Thailand. And the language of the Dai ethnic group living in the prefecture sounds like Thai — so it “feels like you’re in Thailand,” according to the post.

Cleo Xie, a 46-year-old senior bank executive from Chengdu, said her family would go on vacation to Europe or Asia at least twice a year before the pandemic. But as of 2020, they only traveled to China on vacations.

She tried a new style of travel that is in vogue among young people: “citywalk”. The idea is to visit a Chinese city and spend a day walking its streets and soaking up its atmosphere, rather than taking a full-fledged vacation.

The trend has taken off on Xiaohongshu, with over 1.7 billion views for #Citywalk, where young spenders share their favorite local snack shops or recommend walking routes to their peers.

“I like to walk around and see the life of the locals, taste the local food,” Xie told BI, saying he prefers to take the high-speed train instead of flying.

“The control measures during the pandemic have changed everyone’s travel habits,” she added. “Now a lot of people think that domestic holidays are convenient and you don’t have to plan to do so much.”

In terms of education, young people are exploring options at universities that target older students and taking courses of personal interest at public libraries, where they are cheaper than at commercial outlets, Lai said.

Meanwhile, people are turning to telemedicine and online pharmacies for non-critical conditions.

China’s economy is in a deflationary mode

The wave of spending cuts comes as China is still struggling to transform its economy in the wake of the pandemic. Beijing is now trying to turn the economy around with a concerted stimulus blitz that has boosted market sentiment enormously.

Official data released in September showed that China’s consumer price index rose less than economists had expected. Meanwhile, it is Producer price index — which measures the price of goods at the factory gate — fell 1.8 percent from a year ago.

It was the 23rd consecutive month that the PPI was in negative territory, raising concerns about a “deflationary spiral” where people could delay purchases in anticipation of further price falls, pulling more the economy.

Consumers in China continue to be frugal in the coming months. A Bank of America survey of 1,052 adult Chinese consumers showed a weakening in consumer sentiment, with 30 percent of respondents planning to spend more — down from 45 percent in June. Only 21% expected their income to increase in the next six months.

Jin, the part-time adviser, told BI that she still prefers to buy cosmetics and accessories from brands she knows and trusts, such as lipstick from Yves Saint Laurent and bags from Charles & Keith.

But she became satisfied with the off-brand clothes she found online, especially given the lower prices.

“My family and I are more cautious with our spending,” she said.