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Shanghai And Guangzhou


beancounter

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One of my colleagues is off to China with a shopping list of reps and other knock-off items in hand. Thing is, we know where to go if we are in Hong Kong or in Shenzhen, but he is headed to some new places for us, namely Shanghai and Guangzhou. Anyone know where to get started doing some looking for reps in these two cities?

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One of my colleagues is off to China with a shopping list of reps and other knock-off items in hand. Thing is, we know where to go if we are in Hong Kong or in Shenzhen, but he is headed to some new places for us, namely Shanghai and Guangzhou. Anyone know where to get started doing some looking for reps in these two cities?

I will never reommend to buy reps at any shops in China. You simply will not get anything decent on the streets. And you will just end up being cheated with crap reps there.

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One of my colleagues is off to China with a shopping list of reps and other knock-off items in hand. Thing is, we know where to go if we are in Hong Kong or in Shenzhen, but he is headed to some new places for us, namely Shanghai and Guangzhou. Anyone know where to get started doing some looking for reps in these two cities?

Visit dealer Sichuan.

I am pretty sure he has a store filled with reps.

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I was in Shanghai in Feb this year and tried several places... only found one little room with some decent pams... with the old style 6497, asking price is about $500. That's about it. You will not be able to find stuff that our dealers sell here on the board.

However if you go to Beijing, I was able to find a couple of PAM111s at a local market called "YA XIOU" and I paid about $80 each, they are the newer style with CN6497.

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Dont' bother with Shanghai....all the reps I've seen there over 3 occassions have been more than disappointing.

Xiang Yang Market (Shanghai) is the infamous venue to satisfy your replica needs/wants but when it comes to watches....quality is just bad.

They do not even carry swiss unitas movements in the Panerai(s) and with regards to Rolexes...perhaps just those asian replicas...

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There was a colleague in old RWG forum who found a place in Goungdong. It must be huge and he found everything we are talking about here. He described all his experiences in old RWG forum. You will certainly still find it there.

Edited by simon
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One of my colleagues is off to China with a shopping list of reps and other knock-off items in hand. Thing is, we know where to go if we are in Hong Kong or in Shenzhen, but he is headed to some new places for us, namely Shanghai and Guangzhou. Anyone know where to get started doing some looking for reps in these two cities?

Just been over to RWG1 and lifted this post I made late last year:

>>>>>>> GUANGZHOU <<<<<<

====WOOO HOOO====

Well - just returned from my 'fact finding' tour of GUANGZHOU last night. Was a bit of al last minute rush as due to a national holiday (1st-10th October) the embassy in Bangkok would be closed - There are no 'walk in' visas on arrival as in Shenzhen, so you have to obtain one in advance. Also Thai Air was running a promotion, but you had to depart in September to qualify! Also from the 13th October onwards Guangzhou is hosting an International Trade Fair ( and all hotels are having a 'feeding frenzy' with up to fivefold prices!!) All this meant an immediate dash to BKK, a same day visa application, overnight in Airport Hotel, and flight direct to Guangzhou the following morning.

During the descent I was presented with Arrival card, Customs declaration, health declaration etc etc, so I thought I'd be straight and declare the money I was carrying (to preempt any problems on departure if I was to be still carrying over the threshold amount of $5K). So off I eventually went to the Red channel (a new experience!!) and surprise surprise no one could find a box cutter or a blade to open up the brick like packages (methinks not the most active of customs!)

However when I got to the currency exchange I found that my recently declared dough was about as much use as old newspapers due to them only changing USD HKD & EUs!!!! My poor old GBP and THB just wouldn’t cut it!!! There where two ATMs (in other Terminal buildings for Departures!) both of which with no money in them!!!! Tip: Don’t assume things to be up to date just because the buildings are brand new BE SURE TO BRING THE RIGHT CURRENCY. I'll skip how I resolved this as you'll be bored to tears before it's over!

Enough of the domestics and on to the watches. Print and present this to any Taxi and you’re on your way (be sure to have another to where you want to get to after you’ve finished - if you’re not a Chinese speaker!)

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As a point of interest, and another tip: Keep this with you even when not going to the watch markets. As for example at the evening shops at Beijing Road you will find yourself being stalked by 'Watch Werewolves' brandishing little laminated cards with curious photos of what appear to be Rollies and howling 'Watchies, many watchies' in an endeavour to lure you to their backstreet lair with its display of a few crap reps where the will try and extract 10x the norm for them! The good news is that if you show this in response to their card they recoil like a 'b' movie vampire from a crucifix - great fun!!

Just to cross check where you need to be (old helo piloting techniques die hard) - You need to go past the Main Railway Station (going to the left as you look at it) which is on a huge plaza with two big buildings the right hand one has a Giant 'FUJIFILM' sign on top of it and a non working Digi Clock permanently showing 88.88 (oooh errr an omen!). The other left hand one is clad in scaffolding and green netting. Mucho people and busses. Continue to the left of the concourse past the Post Office building, you will see a walkway over the road with people thronging overhead, you pass under this and turn right just after some very space age looking public toilets (depending on the time of day just follow the stream of busses going up this road to go into the rear of the Bus Station which is the next building after this turnoff). Triple check by confirming that the road you have turned into bears this sign immediately on the right:

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About 200m takes you to the top of this road, pay off the taxi as you’re there. I wont regurgitate teevtee's post but will add these photos which are virtually all to be seen on 360 degrees from that spot:

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All of these Trading Halls are much the same - a multitude of small glass 'stalls' selling every style of watch from pure junk fashion quartzs thru 'so what' names to reps that no one here would countenance and on to stuff we know and love. By the way as far as photos go these traders are 'timorous wee beasties' and very camera shy.Probably due to not that long ago a photo of any minor indiscretion led to a swift judicial pistol shot to the back of the head! (maybe another tip should be always carry a camera to aim at the damn beggars, who get a little too tactile at times!). Anyway here’s one I sneaked:

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Now, not wanting to 'burst anyone’s bubble' but.... the problem is that the ratio of pure crap to possible buys is I would say in the region of 1000:1 at best. Or put another way on a good day shopping in Thailand amongst the suppliers I use I would be happy leaving with 70 - 100 pieces. 3.5 long days here and I netted not 30 watches!! This is not to say there aren’t many things to buy , yup wooden branded watch boxes about ฃ1 each etc etc and the opportunity to search through the watches. But it is back to basics here - check and double-check everything: Stainless case? Typos? Functions? Assume nothing! (I had hundreds of disappointments!). Also you will find yourself rubbing shoulders with Arabs, Turks, Ethiopians etc all stocking up here. So if you’ve ever wondered why they persist in making Rollies only a Nigerian would wear, or where those Mediterranean resort 'Lookie Lookie' men stocked up.......

Incidentally everyone I could secure an intelligible response from told me that big numbers of reps "for business" (whatever that means) going outbound at the airport = the internationally understood mime for handcuffs! The solution is to entrust big numbers to these little shipping agents who will, after you’ve departed get your reps thru to HK and on to your home country...yeah right!

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Despite the holidays (which I think only physically applies to civil servants etc as everything was 'open as usual') I kept asking myself where are all the motor bikes and bicycles that are synonymous with Chinese cities (the roads really are sedate compared with good old BKK). Unless of course they’ve all been traded in to be cut up for low grade watch cases!!

After the 3.5 days watch shopping I decided on an afternoon at the Guangzhou Zoo (being all watched out!) - well Europeans are a rarity in Guangzhou and I felt more like an exhibit than a visitor! But hey look who is putting in a spot appearance soon...none other than TTK apparently

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On to my departure. The airport is not the most user friendly, but I eventually arrived at the Customs checkpoint (for Departures!!!) but I went through without a declaration form - foolishly thinking the one I had all duly stamped up re the currency was what I would need. After a moronic interlude with one of the uniforms I went & fiilled one in - So what the hell, just to prove to myself that the check was less than rudimentary I ticked the lot ... national treasures, religious artifacts, goods of trade value, gold & silver items etc etc and you guessed it ....waved thru!!!! ho hum.

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Thanks all. If I was wasting my time alone, I might take the time to go and do a crawl through a whole market. Given that it's one of our finance guys, and his time is actually supposed to be used to do something that brings in revenue, I'll stick with a note to Sichuan and questions about what kind of quantity discount I might get on a pick-up order.

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My wife tells me that they are all addresses and as such do not translate. She also says don't bother going to any of them, as you will not find good quality reps there. You must find the 'market within the market'.

Cheers

'market within the market'...... same as everywhere else then :D

.

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