China's Underground Wholesale Markets • Hacker News Board

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#31

Post by youngmoneychina » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 10:58 AM UTC

bx_ wrote: post #19

Very skeptical of any article that begins with "The truth behind..." Also, a little annoyed by the authors misused of "underground" here -- these malls are not underground at all, and are often far more popular than the 'real' shops.

Hi, Sorry your not happy with this blog.

I was trying to give a real straight forward look at these markets.

The markets I'm talking about are underground in both senses of the word, if you look at the first pic you will see you actually have to go underground to get inside.

Maybe were talking about different places as there are certainly touristy malls similar to this but they are a waste of time for business use.

Thanks

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#32

Post by IkmoIkmo » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 12:25 PM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #10

Strangely, this reminds me of some sci-fi story, "First Contract". In a nutshell, aliens buy Jupiter (most of the mass in the solar system) for the space-colonial equivalent of shiny beads, wrecking the world economy with an influx of tech-goods. One down-on-his-luck CEO struggles to get Earth out of "third world" (solar-system?) status by--how else--using cheap labor to export kitschy crap :p

Where can I find this?

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#33

Post by joshvm » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 12:50 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #32

Terr_ wrote: post #10

Strangely, this reminds me of some sci-fi story, "First Contract". In a nutshell, aliens buy Jupiter (most of the mass in the solar system) for the space-colonial equivalent of shiny beads, wrecking the world economy with an influx of tech-goods. One down-on-his-luck CEO struggles to get Earth out of "third world" (solar-system?) status by--how else--using cheap labor to export kitschy crap :p

Where can I find this?

Here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Contract-Greg-Costikyan/dp/031...

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#34

Post by bce » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 1:31 PM UTC

The Zhong Fa Electronics Market in Beijing looked like I imagined the DigiKey warehouse to: resistors stall, oscillators stall, FPGA stall, etc.

Photos (note: less crowded because I went on a Sunday morning):

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6vx0hWnq-f-V3Z5M0FR...

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#35

Post by snake_plissken » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 1:45 PM UTC

nathannecro wrote: post #21

Unfortunately, the author seems to be doing a bit of hocus-pocus hand-waving to make these "underground" malls seem like some mystical place. If it's too inconvenient for any of you to make it into China, you can always stop by Hong Kong. In the district of Wan Chai (a fairly touristy area of Hong Kong), there's a fairly well known place known simply as the "Computer Centre". In it, you'll find two floors of a giant…

I've found the ones on The Mainland to be way cooler, from the badass feel they have to the sheer volume of random stuff you can buy.

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#36

Post by gambiting » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 1:55 PM UTC

Ha. The bit about Poland reminds me about what my dad used to do. He would drive a van delivering things to Germany/Netherlands/UK and bring it back full of second hand things to sell in Poland - usually at 4-5x the value, because after the fall of communism people would buy literally anything in any quantity. Good times.

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#37

Post by theklub » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 2:00 PM UTC

This is exactly like alibaba in physical form.

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#38

Post by tormeh » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 2:49 PM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #17

analog31 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind if I ask how? I ask as one who is still quite bewildered by the whole Bitcoin thing, but would love to better understand how it works.

Imagine you live in Nigeria and happen to be the one actual honest to god legit well to do Nigerian prince. You want to go shopping online for a iPhone with your credit card. Problem is no one in their right mind on planet earth will sell you that iPhone because the chances of a fraudulent transaction originating from Nigeria are close to 100%. With Bitcoin on the other hand when you transfer someone bitcoin that pay…

Couldn't you just demand a debit card instead of a credit one? Having had the pleasure of trying to pay with an empty debit card I can confirm that it does not work.

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#39

Post by DanBC » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 2:51 PM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #17

analog31 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind if I ask how? I ask as one who is still quite bewildered by the whole Bitcoin thing, but would love to better understand how it works.

Imagine you live in Nigeria and happen to be the one actual honest to god legit well to do Nigerian prince. You want to go shopping online for a iPhone with your credit card. Problem is no one in their right mind on planet earth will sell you that iPhone because the chances of a fraudulent transaction originating from Nigeria are close to 100%. With Bitcoin on the other hand when you transfer someone bitcoin that pay…

This problem was already solved by Western Union.

Re: China's Underground Wholesale Markets

#40

Post by dharma1 » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 3:06 PM UTC

good article, thanks. What are the prices usually like on these wholesale markets, can you give some examples to get a sense of what the retail margins could be like?

Then shipping - containers? Costs? I have a feeling a lot of Chinese ebay retailers (the ones who ship from the UK, probably have a warehouse here) don't pay import duty/taxes - how do they get around it?