Demand for foreign goods still high despite new taxes

The cachet attached to foreign goods remains high despite new taxes, according to a survey by FT Confidential Research, a unit of the Financial Times. Recent government tax increases and tighter customs treatment of business-to-consumer cross-border ecommerce, dubbed haitao in Chinese, may appear to threaten surging demand for international goods, but the survey shows that consumers are motivated by more than price. Although under the new tax rules prices for haitao goods may eventually rise as much as 10%, the survey found that authenticity and trust in the origin of the product were the most important factors driving Chinese consumers to buy from overseas.