Chinese producers are flooding Tiktok and other social media apps with appeals directed to American buyers, urging people to buy luxury items directly from their factories. And among the threats of high rates to Chinese exports, the Americans seem to be all.
The tone in the videos is that people can buy leggings and bags exactly like those of brands such as Lululemon, Hermes and Birkenstock, but for a fraction of the price. They often argue falsely that the products are made in the same factories that produce objects for those brands.
The American influencers embraced videos, promoting the factories and guiding the downloads of apps for Chinese shopping such as Dhgate and Taobao as a way for buyers to save money if the price of goods has set in motion under the tariffs of President Trump on Chinese imports. Dhgate was among the 10 most downloaded apps in the Apple and Google App Store last week.
Videos are increasing by Tiktok and Instagram, accumulating millions of views and thousands of likes. Many of the places also seem to have aroused the sympathy of the Americans for China in the comments, such as “Trump has the victim of bullying on the wrong country” and “China has won this war”.
Videos offer a rare outlet for Chinese factories owners and workers to speak directly to American consumers through social media apps that are technically prohibited in China. And their popularity in America highlights the increasingly vocal support for China on social media, similar to the protests of the potential ban on the federal government of Tiktok.
“He is activating people politically in a way similar to when we have canceled Tiktok, but this time in the context of rates and the general relationship with the two countries,” said Matt Pearl, a director who focuses on technological issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “He demonstrates their ability to communicate with American consumers to guide a message on our dependence on Chinese assets”.
Pearl suggested that the Chinese government could allow videos to proliferate, since otherwise it tends to discourage its citizens from the publication of videos that violate brands products from Western countries.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington and the Chinese consulate in New York did not return requests for comment.
The volume of the videos of Tiktok who exhorted users to obtain products directly from Chinese factories climbed almost 250 percent during the week of April 13, according to Margot Hardy, Graphika analyst, a social network analysis company. On Tiktok, the hashtag #chinesefactory had 29,500 seats on April 23; On Instagram, he had 27,300 seats.
Retail sales experts – and sellers in China – say that it is unlikely that the most viral videos, which claim to be producers for brands such as Lululemon and Hermes, are selling authentic products from those labels. Those factories often sign rigorous agreements of non -dissemination and unlikely that destroy their long -term relationships with the main brands in exchange for some goods through direct sales, said Sucharita Kodali, retail analyst in Forrester.
The Chinese government seems to allow videos to proliferate, he said.
“The interests of a Lululemon or Chanel right now in China are probably the number 100 in the list of things that the Chinese Minister of Commerce and officials are worried,” said Mrs. Kodali. The producers could also hurry to close sales before the new rates on May 2nd heavy expenses to the shipments of parcels from China, he said.
However, the questions about the truthfulness of the goods do not stop the question.
Elizabeth Henzie, 23 years old in Mooresville, NC, said he had found the production costs and retail prices described in the videos that open their eyes. He made a sheet of calculation of factories that say that they are selling dolies of sneakers, luxury bags and more, and connected it to his Tiktok profile. That post has attracted more than one million views.
Mrs. Henzie now works as a affiliation partner for Dhgate, where she will receive free products from the company for revision videos and a commission if people make a purchase through her connections. He said he believed that people in China eventually were trying to help the Americans.
“Seeing how other countries are joining to try to help American consumers has increased my morale,” said Mrs. Henzie. “Even if it is a negative thing that is happening in America, I think he is also pushing us to gather.”
Tiktok, who is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, has eliminated some of the videos, indicating a policy that prohibits the promotion of counterfeit goods. But many persisted through republics. Even the oldest videos on Chinese production are spreading in the feed of personalized news in the great interest for rates. Tiktok refused to comment further and Instagram, owned by Meta, refused to comment on the videos.
The sellers in China claim to have started to publish the videos when sales have decreased. Yu Qiule, the 36 -year -old co -owner of a manufacturing company in the province of Shandong in Eastern China that produces fitness equipment, said he started posting Tiktok in mid -March to find more customers after the rates pushed a wave of canceled orders.
Louis LV, general manager of exports to the Hongye Jewelry Factory in Yiwu, in the province of Zhejiang, said that his company started posting on Tiktok at the end of 2024, led by a slowing down of domestic sales.
But he saw the audience in his Tiktok videos climbed since the Trump administration announced the rates. “The philosophy of Chinese businessmen is that we will go wherever they are,” he said in an interview.
In one of the most popular Tiktok videos, a man holds what he says is a Hermes Birkin bag while claiming to share production costs from a factory. (The original video and account have been removed, but the versions of the video are still widely circulating through the republishing of other users.) It says that the bag costs less than $ 1,400 for production, but that the French luxury dealer sells it for $ 38,000 exclusively for the label. The man claimed to have used the same skin and the same hardware to replicate the bags without the logo, offering them for $ 1,000.
A spokesman for Hermes said that his bags “were 100 % made in France” and refused to comment further. A Birkenstock spokesman said that the videos showed “Knockoff” and that his footwear were designed and produced in the European Union. The company said she had contacted Tiktok and that the initial videos were deleted on April 15th.
Lululemon, who was also the goal of the viral videos of Tiktok of the producers who claim to sell his leggings for only $ 5, said he had been in contact with Tiktok to remove false statements. Lululemon declared in a declaration via E -mail that did not work with the producers in the videos and warned consumers that they are aware of potentially counterfeit products and disinformation.
Vanessa Friedman AND Isabelle Qian Reports contributed by New York.