A forty-something man from mainland China is busy shopping for a Louis Vuitton handbag on Hong Kong’s Canton Road. “Stop doing research for this little bag,” he says impatiently to a friend on the phone. “I’ll just buy you one randomly.” After hanging up, he looks for advice from the friends who are in the shop with him. One suggests a leather bag while the other points to a canvas bag.
Outside, another friend is carrying a messenger bag with an outsized LV logo, and pacing the sidewalk. “I bought this bag for RMB10,000 ($1,521) in South Korea,” he says proudly. Minutes later, he is worrying aloud if it is outdated. He works in the coal and cement business and says he has travelled to Hong Kong more than 20 times in the past couple of years – whenever he was “bored” – spending tens of thousands of renminbi on shopping on each visit.
The luxury goods market in China is booming and consumers like these are an increasingly important target. Last week, McKinsey, the consultancy, released a report forecasting that spending on luxury goods by Chinese consumers would grow by 18 per cent annually to about $27bn by 2015 – when the market will surpass that of Japan, the current biggest market.