Big Black Friday discount to boost overseas online purchases

The Black Friday shopping season is expected to spur Chinese online purchases overseas despite the recent weakening of the yuan.

Ymatou.com, a Shanghai-based e-commerce company dedicated to overseas products, has already rolled out special offers days before the shopping season and has seen rising sales compared with last year.

The company said it sold 60 million yuan ($8.67 million) worth of goods in the first 10 minutes when the sales started last Friday, a week earlier than the official start of the shopping season.

An 88,999-yuan Birkin bag was snatched up within two minutes and 320 Canada Goose jackets priced over 5,000 yuan were sold out in an hour.

The yuan further weakened on Thursday to pass the threshold of 6.9 against the US dollar.

"The depreciation of the yuan does not dampen the frenzy of shopping abroad as most Western products on sale are still quite cheap compared with same products sold in franchised stores in China," Zeng Bibo, chief executive officer of ymatou.com, said on Thursday.

Chinese middle class shoppers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. "They want to buy high-quality products, enjoy good services and live a tasteful life," said Zeng.

The Black Friday shopping season seems a good opportunity for them to live such lives at a relatively low cost. The shopping festival is a period when retailers offer massive discounts to attract consumers.

Chen Tao, an analyst with Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys, said Black Friday has been growing in popularity in China.

"But it is still in its infancy in China, and its size is quite small compared with China's homegrown online shopping festival Singles Day," he said.

"As Chinese middle class shoppers are becoming less and less price sensitive, what they care most about in cross-border shopping is the quality and brands of goods, fast delivery and good return policy, which will be the key areas for online retailers to work on," he added.