Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Kobayashi, who has been working in Huaqiang North parallel import market for 10 years, finally decided to end his career in Huaqiang North and choose to go back to his hometown for development.

"now we can't do it at all. If we grasp it strictly, it's not easy to sell. In the future, there won't be any parallel cargo planes in Huaqiang North."

In Kobayashi's words, the "parallel import machine" is not a defective product in the factory or a high-imitation mobile phone, but a general term for iPhone mobile phones that enter the mainland market from informal channels and are sold without authorization, such as Hong Kong version, American version, Japanese version and so on. As the pricing of foreign iPhone is generally lower than that at home, coupled with tax evasion, a Hong Kong version or American version of iPhone can be more than a thousand yuan cheaper than at home.

"in the past, Huaqiang North made too much money by selling parallel mobile phones. If you casually bring back a few mobile phones from Hong Kong, you can earn thousands a day. I don't know how many people have made a lot of money." Kobayashi misses the extraordinary years very much, and there is a big difference between now and now: "now it is too strict to catch smuggling, and to catch it is to be sentenced, who dares to make parallel mobile phones?"

There are not a few parallel import machine businesses in the same situation as him, and Huaqiangbei seems to have fallen into an unprecedented depression and desolation.

From the hustle and bustle of people to the Times Building, it is not only the highest rent stall in Huaqiang North, but also the center of parallel mobile phones. There are few offices here, with rows of glass counters forming an area, and the stall owners are next to each other, like monkeys locked up in a zoo. The glass case was filled with unpackaged iPhone phones and stacks of red banknotes.

Backpackers panning for gold up and down the aisle quickly negotiate prices with their bosses when they see good parallel imports of iPhone, and when bargaining, they can't let their peers hear them. They all take a calculator with them and press the numbers to the sellers to see what prices they want. As soon as the quoted prices are sold, they wrap the unpackaged iPhone in plastic bags and stuff it into the backpack. By the next day, the iPhone in the backpack will be sent to secondary dealers or customers all over the country.

Huaqiang Beishi Xiao Lin's shop is located in a small office on the fourth floor, and the door is covered with the after-sale sign of XX mobile phone repair. in fact, he doesn't know how to repair mobile phones at all.

"I basically don't do retail business. I buy and sell goods in large quantities." Recalling the extraordinary years, Xiao Lin could not help pointing out the mountains and rivers: "there are three kinds of people who sell goods in Feiyang Mansion, the upstream are the wholesalers who control the sources and channels, the middle reaches are the stall owners who rent an one-meter cabinet, and the lower reaches are backpackers or individual customers, and I only do upstream business."

Kobayashi told Zinc Finance that his "parallel import business" is very big, and as the upstream wholesaler, he has two ways to purchase goods: one is to "make a small fuss", hiring backpackers to go to Hong Kong every day and carrying iPhone back by human flesh. Although this kind of risk is small, it can only bring back 3-5 iPhone at most at a time, and it is easy to be discovered by the customs if there is more.

The second is the smuggling business of large-scale trading, in which a number of high-horsepower engines and river boats are installed on freight vessels in Shenzhen Bay, Shenzhen River or Sha Tau Kok to bring hundreds of iPhone from Hong Kong to Shenzhen at one time through various "black means". Kobayashi is very cautious about this kind of "big deal" and does it only every few months.

"every time the goods arrive, that's the most inflated time. I immediately informed the stall owners familiar with Feiyang Building and asked them to come to my office one by one. Then I took my calculator and pressed the price of each iPhone one by one, what the total price was. If they don't accept it, I'll let them go and keep calling for the next one."

Source: parallel imports of iPhone on the Internet were very popular at that time. Kobayashi often sold all the goods as soon as they were moved from the dock: "generally, they can sell them all in less than an hour, and they all pay face-to-face for delivery, and they can't send express delivery. after giving the money, the stall owners will carry boxes of iPhone and pull them back by themselves."

The good times did not last long, and such "glory days" did not last long. From the beginning of 2022, affected by the import of the epidemic situation abroad, Shenzhen began to severely crack down on smuggling and illegal immigration, strictly investigate the sources of purchase channels or express goods, and strictly investigate and deal with the sale of imported goods without legal sources.

As a key target of the Feiyang Building, wholesalers such as Kobayashi do not dare to restock, resulting in a cliff drop in the number of parallel imports of iPhone. Stall owners have no goods, backpackers have no goods, and eventually the parallel import business gradually disappears.

At present, most of the one-meter cabinets in Feiyang Building have been emptied and a large number of shops have been sublet or leased.

Parallel iPhone is not cheap either. The biggest purchase value of parallel iPhone is because of its low price. But in recent years, this underlying logic has been subverted a little bit.

As mentioned above, the purchase of parallel iPhone is divided into wholesalers, stall owners and backpackers, which also means that a batch of iPhone smuggled from Hong Kong is first withdrawn by the wholesaler and then transferred to the stall owner, who then withdraws a sum of money and then transfers it to the backpacker or secondary distributor. Finally, backpackers and secondary dealers sell to consumers, and they also draw a sum of money.

Kobayashi told Zinc Finance: "parallel iPhone is actually similar to second-hand mobile phones. When shipped from the Apple counter in Hong Kong, it is first-hand to me, second-hand to stall owners, and third-hand to backpackers and secondary distributors."... in the hands of consumers, they have been transferred to the fourth hand. "

By the time consumers get the parallel iPhone, the price is already much higher than the real Hong Kong iPhone. Compared with the Bank of China version of iPhone, there is not much advantage in price.

Apple Store at the same time, the e-commerce platform also regards iPhone as the most important drainage commodity, frequently on the shelves of various price reduction activities. For example, the "10 billion subsidy" has continued to provide large subsidies to iPhone since 2019, driving down the starting price of Bank of China's iPhone.

At the same time, in the e-commerce promotion led by Singles' Day and June 18, Bank of China iPhone will launch 24-phase interest-free activities. Compared with parallel iPhone, which requires an one-time payment of several thousand yuan, the threshold for consumers to buy Bank of China iPhone is even lower.

In addition to the lack of price advantage, e-commerce platforms have also begun to boycott parallel mobile phones. At the end of 2020, Taobao explicitly required sellers not to publish descriptions of non-Chinese mainland versions, such as "American version, Asia-Pacific version, European version, Japanese version, Korean version, locked version", and other e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and SUNING also issued regulations to restrict parallel imports of mobile phones.

In the face of the continuous tightening of the market, the biggest profit point of parallel iPhone is around Apple's launch in September every year. After the release of the new iPhone, due to the stock problem of new products, the price of the first batch of new iPhone will rise sharply, which can bring a surge of life to Huaqiang North, which has been silent for a long time.

However, this year's iPhone 14 series has been boycotted by consumers because the basic version of 14 and Plus continue to use the previous generation of A15 chips, directly leading to lower-than-expected demand for iPhone 14 series, resulting in a large number of hoarding, making Huaqiangbei's parallel import business even worse.

"Apple can't save Huaqiang North." Kobayashi gave his last attributive to his ten-year career in Huaqiang North, and then boarded the high-speed railway on the return journey home.

Transformation is still inseparable from Apple. When a company has difficulties in survival, transformation becomes the only option. Huaqiangbei's parallel iPhone has gradually disappeared, and Apple accessories has become the biggest business.

Apple's smart wearable devices have caused a stir in the industry in recent years. Both iWatch and AirPods are phenomenal products with annual sales of more than 100 million. But it also breeds the grey industrial chain of "white-brand electronic equipment" in Huaqiang North.

The so-called "white brand" is actually unbranded copycat goods, and its biggest advantages are low prices and extremely similar appearance to AirPods. Compared with the prohibitive price of thousands of yuan of AirPods, white headphones ranging from 50 to 200 yuan seem to be more in line with consumer expectations.

Not only is the appearance similar, Huaqiang North's white headphones even support Apple AirPods Pro standard functions such as "renaming positioning, pop-up window connection, ear detection" and so on.

White-brand headphones, which are cheap and similar to AirPods in appearance and function, have become the industry's top seller. According to data from the Shanghai Securities Research Institute, 292 million white-brand headphones were shipped in 2020, accounting for 49%, while Apple shipped 78 million AirPods units, accounting for 21%.

With nearly 300 million shipments, Huaqiangbei has more and more manufacturers producing white-brand headphones, gradually replacing parallel-imported mobile phones and becoming Huaqiangbei's new business card.

Although white-brand headphones sell well, white-brand headphones that rely too much on imitation always face the risk of patent infringement. On the other hand, the price of white-brand headphones is too low, which leads to the limited income that manufacturers can get. Although shipments are more than half, net profit is not comparable to Apple's AirPods.

From iPhone parallel imports and smuggling to AirPods copycat and plagiarism, if Huaqiangbei has been operating white headphones as the core, it will only further tarnish its reputation.

Sitting in a business district of 1.45sq km, with annual sales of 200 billion yuan and making more than 50 billionaires, I am afraid no one knows where Huaqiang North business legends will go in the future.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: zinc Finance (ID:xincaijing), author: sun Pengyue

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