During this year’s National Day holiday, international transactions on Alibaba's shopping platform Tmall Global, increased by 79 percent compared with the same period last year, showing that Chinese consumers purchasing products via cross-border online shopping platforms has become a new trend.

A woman selects imported cosmetic products in Zhengzhou, central China’s Henan province. (Photo/Xinhua)

"I just bought a Gucci belt on Beyond (a cross-border online shopping APP) two days ago. As the platform offers tariff subsidies, the price is very reasonable," said Zhang Xiaohan, a girl who lives in Beijing, adding, “Now you can easily buy authentic imported goods that are cheap without going abroad."

Outbound travel has become difficult this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, thanks to cross-border online shopping platforms, Chinese people can now buy foreign products easily without going abroad.

"There are three main categories of imported goods consumers," said a person in charge at Tmall, noting that the first category is post-00 students, who are mainly interested in socializing, and see cross-border online shopping as a way for them to explore and experience the world.

The second category is urban female white-collar workers from the post-90s generation, seeking to meet their needs for beauty products.

The third category is mothers, who like to buy imported products for mother and baby, in pursuit of safety, quality and convenience.

The person in charge also pointed out that such consumers are no longer only distributed throughout first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but also come from provinces such as Shanxi and Hebei.

Data from JD.com, China’s online retail giant, also shows that these fastest growing groups of consumers of imported goods come from fourth-and fifth-tier cities, and that the number is nearly double that of the same period last year.