Chinese consumers, still hungry for luxury goods, pounce on weak yen to feed cravings

Frequent traveller Yang Yang makes extra money by hooking up Chinese customers with luxury items from Japan, with her business surging this year amid the yen’s sustained depreciation.

“I mainly sell products from Japan’s vintage markets, now with the favourable exchange rate, prices for second-hand luxury items are also lower, and we saw a significant increase in customers compared to last year,” said the 27-year-old, who lives in the eastern port city of Qingdao.

Despite an economic slowdown at home that has sent sales of luxury goods plummeting, demand for products from Japan – brand new or second-hand – are much sought after by affluent Chinese consumers who are becoming price conscious and are taking advantage of a cheaper yen that makes items more affordable.

They either flock to Japan to travel and shop, or buy through proxy shopping services provided by online users like Yang, who live in or frequently travel to Japan and share real-time yen exchange rates and luxury goods prices on Instagram-style platform Xiaohongshu.

On Friday, the yen exchange rate was around 153 to the US dollar, after having hit a 34-year low of 161.956 in July.

Louis Vuitton’s official website lists a black leather OnTheGo bag for the equivalent of US$3,075.37 in China, while the same item is priced at the equivalent of US$2,727.32 on the Japanese website, creating a price difference of US$348.05.