The grey market
There are grey markets in China and Hong Kong where people can buy imports of legitimate foreign products which were not intended for those destinations. You will have to pay up but you can get the latest handbag or electronic product before its official launch date. The hot purchase of the moment is the Apple iPad. This costs $500 in the US and is selling for $760 on the Chinese grey markets. The premium's not as high as the iPhone in 2007 which sold at double the US retail price.
posted by Whispering Walls at 7:42 am
6 Comments:
And if you buy an imported car (such as a Chrysler), and you are not happy with it and the customer service doesn't deal with your complaints effectively, you can complain about it in the Chinese way too.
See http://cblog.chinadaily.com.cn/a/tuwen/2047281539025.shtml
Intriguing - but still don't understand grey markets. Where were they supposed to go? . What does a 7% grey market price decline in a week say about the product ? 60 still in stock ? Too eary to punt before the kinks are ironed out?
Hi Janet - shall look at that.
Morning Angus - they were presumably syphoned off from the goods intended to be sold in the US, so when they are described as "legitimate" that means they're not Chinese fakes but are nevertheless smuggled goods. The grey markets I deal with are in equities. We're not allowed to deal in them but HK retail punters do and we hear what price an IPO is selling for before it lists on the market. It's an interesting indicator. Last month we heard that an IPO in which we'd only got half our demand, was selling 5% below the issue price in the grey market. We then decided to apply for the shares we didn't get on the first day of trading at the issue price. The issue price was HK$10. On the first day it went to a low of $9.60, we got our extra shares at $10 and it closed at $11.50. A happy day!
I am hanging on for the new iPhone this summer. I wonder what that will fetch on the grey market.
Hi Ellee - I'll see if I can see one when I'm in Shanghai next month but it'll probably be too early.
Good lord.
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