bing-o Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 I am in Hong Kong for a 2 week family holiday! I went to Shenzhen by train from Tsim Sha Tsui East KCR (train station) last wednesday, it took about 40 minutes to reach Lo Wu and another 40 minutes to clear all the check points. I went straight to the Lo Wu Commercial Center just outside the immigration check point and spent the entire day from 11am till 8pm. Manage to have a lovely Dim Sum meal at Laurel Restaurant on the 5th floor for lunch. There are fakes of almost everything here, hundreds of stores selling replicas. I started on the 5th floor and work myself downwards...after a while it's the same kind of stuff in every floor. The 5th floor is slightly different as the restaurants are mainly found here and a large area is aportioned for clothes and you could get any kind of suits/dresses made by the tailors there at dirt cheap prices and it can be ready within hours for the simpler ones to about 3 days. All branded bags/wallets/purse under the sun are available in abundance here. If you have the time to haggle with prices, you'll get it between 1/3 up to 1/2 the original asking price! U could get an LV/coach/Fendi/Gucci purse for HK$60! (my wife bought 10 of these). the bigger hand bags would cost about HK$100 to 200 per piece after substantial discounts. The quality in my opinion is quite good and the small details are accurate (better than the ones found in Mongkok night market or elsewhere in bangkok or Kuala Lumpur for example). There are loads and loads of them, it's unbelievable. They also have replicas of branded shoes both for men and women. I remember being cramped with 2 aussie gals and 2 sales person in one of the small store room on the 6th floor which was filled with bags/shoes upto the ceiling, fortunately the room was air conditioned. they bought a dozen pairs of Gucci/Prada stillettos and shoes, each pair costing HK$65, this plus dozens of Prada/ LV/ Burberry/ Gucci handbags and they were asking me if they could face problems with the Aussie customs. They also have men shoes and I got myself a pair of soft leather Prada shoes and another pair of Ferragamo loafers, their asking price was HK$280 each pair but I manage to bring it down by 50%. Just think less than US$10 per pair of good quality leather shoes!!! Value for money if you ask me. Now, the watch reps............it's a big dissapointment! Went to quite a few shops but they only have the low quality cheapo reps. They'll part with 2 asian auto lady datejust and 1 lady Chanel J12 quartz for HK$480. That's HK$160 per watch. Reliability is a big problem as only 1 watch works relatively well now and the other auto datejust died on arrival (seconds hand refuse to move) and the J12 stops intermittently! I showed them my IWC Ingenieur that I just got from the group buy and they don't have any reps of that quality. TOO expensive to sell was teir main reason. Anyway, I manage to put in a 2 hour heavenly body massage session in a Spa located on the 4th floor of Lo Wu Commercial Centre. HK$88 for 2 hours and I gave a tip of HK$60! I believe the Spa is called Lee Mei Hua or something like that. Got to stop here as weare going out for dinner.....will continue report later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KB Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 If you want rep watches you have to make your way to the watch markets in Guangzhou. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highflyingclive Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 Sorry to contradict you, Ken... but the GZ market has come under pressure from the thought police. I was there last month - not a single rep on view. Everything interesting is undercover. Quite a contrast from the scene a couple of years ago. Had I not been with Jos and Andrew, i wouldn't have seen a single rep. The same was true of the leather market - not a single fake bag on display. China? The country is going to the dogs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeroguy Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 Strange dynamics. I live here my (China) and I buy my reps from dealers on this site via my USA address Good watch reps are too hard to find. Wallets, bags etc. are easy to come by though. DW won't even sell me a watch unless he sends it to USA address... he won't ship to my China address... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bing-o Posted December 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 Hi, just got back from dinner. Part 2. I forgot to mention that in Lo Wu Commercial Centre, the watches that sits on the display window looks like branded watches but their names are either different or been scratched off. This is more or less the same as the reps in Mongkok (Hong Kong). They will show you a catalog of watches and once you have selected the watches, a runner will bring it to you within 5 minutes. You could then check the watches and if not happy, the runner would get another for you....ie another 5 minutes wait. Anyway, the quality is no where near the quality you would get with any of the dealers in RWG. A couple of years ago in Mongkok (HK), they would bring you to some place nearby on the 1st or 2nd floor of a shop to look at watches. Back then they have swiss ETA reps of common brands like Rolex, Omega and the likes but a few nights ago there was none that I could see, when I visited the Mongkok night market. They only have low grade reps, a SS Daytona at HK$280 after discount. One thing I had forgotten to mention earlier, at Lo Wu they have rep silver jeweleries like Tiffany at an amazingly low prices. My wife bought about 8 bracelets at HK$75 each. Anyway, when any of you guys visits HK make sure you spend a day or two in Shenzhen. The hotel rates are much cheaper than in Hong Kong, Spa sessions are bloody cheap, world class golf courses, beautiful women and much much cheaper to shop for anything you may desire. In fact unless you are damn loaded and only shops for original branded stuff (30% more expensive in Shenzhen compared to HK), do all your shopping in Shenzhen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvt Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 >>>Sorry to contradict you, Ken... but the GZ market has come under pressure from the thought police. I was there last month - not a single rep on view. Everything interesting is undercover. <<< Wow Clive, that is SHOCKING, I mean literally SHOCKING. I knoe w that the markets wer eunder some pressure and that shortly after my visit (September 2005) they had ben cracked down on. But to have NO watches is almost unfathomable to me. I mean there were so many different buildings and so many different dealers selling quite literally millions of watches that I am dumbfounded that they are gone. What is all of the physical space being used for now? All of the "international watch" buildings? You have a TON a square footage there that must be used for something. Even when I was there you had to work to see the good stuff, often being brought up stairs to private offices to see the high end fakes. Not to sound silly but are you sure you wer ein the right place? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devedander Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 tvt it's discouraging to hear for sure, but that sounds just like how things work in China... One week it's just a matter of a little bribe to a cop here and there and the next you have to be a blood relative of someone to find the goods. In the city I live in many of the buildings that used to house DVDs/videogames and PC stuff just stand empy and falling apart. I am sure in GZ it's a bit more exagerated but I really wouldn't be surprised if closing down watch shops just resulted in huge empty buildings for decades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highflyingclive Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 Not to sound silly but are you sure you wer ein the right place? Yes, of course... in fact Jos took me to malls that I had not found during previous visits to the GZ watch market. There were plenty of watches on view... and the place was as busy as ever... but no reps on open display. A colleague of mine managed to find a (20mm lug ) PO... but that was only after exhaustive research. Well, demands, really. He's German. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvt Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 Wow, that is really sad to hear. The markets were just SO large that it is a bizarre thought to think that they are all gone... Wow! I guess I was lucky to hit it while it was at some sort of peak because ever since I was there I just heard report after report of it getting smaller and smaller and now it's GONE! Wow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bing-o Posted December 4, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2006 I believe the Guangzhao rep watch market will make a comeback sooner rather than later. These kind of things blows hot & cold & hot again in China where corruption is rife. Hope so anyway............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devedander Posted December 4, 2006 Report Share Posted December 4, 2006 I would think they will be back... when the time comes to completely make them a thing of the past everyone (esp our dealers) will know... you can ask almost anyone on the street about blackmarket DVDs in my city in China and they know that they are not to be found without a lot of legwork now where as just 4 years ago you couldn't cross a major street without seeing someone selling them. I would imagine there are basements and storage lockers bursting with watches right now just waiting for the appropriate bribe opportunity to pop up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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