A Study on the Business Models and the Impacts of Daigou – Taking Chinese Market as an Example

“Daigou” (代購), a term originally from mainland China, has become a robust industry and novel business model in China for a few years with the market expanding 19 times between 2008 and 2012. Due to government intervention and trust-related problems, Daigou market size has been in decline since 2014 with sales volume of only about 40 billion CNY in 2015 (as compared to 57 billion CNY in 2014). In order to fully understand what Daigou is and how it works, this paper focuses on the Chinese market. The Thesis not only investigates many aspects of the Daigou industry including its key elements, target products, customer groups, market potentials, development trends, and influences, but also sums up all information about the current Daigou market in China and to analyze how its future may be. As Daigou business grows from startup to maturity, different problems and opportunities arise, demanding different business solutions. The change of business models is necessary to suit today’s market needs because what worked a year ago might no longer be the best approach nowadays. The evolution of Daigou is presented by making use of five major business models to show how each business model changed to keep up with the market. The impacts of diverse factors on different business models and to the individuals, community and other businesses, are also covered with the use of literature review, personal interviews and qualitative research