In this Ultimate FAQ Guide, we are going to provide you with some useful and interesting information regarding this amazing marketplace.
If you are a Shopify dropshipper, Amazon seller, or seller of other E-commerce platforms, some knowledge about Huaqiangbei will be helpful for your business.
This Ultimate FAQ Guide will also be of great help to you if you intend to hire a professional dropshipping agent to source products from the Chinese market.
Let’s begin!
What Is Huaqiangbei?
Huaqiangbei has a commonly-accepted title, “The No.1 Business Street of Electronic Products in China”. It covers an area of approximately 1.45 square kilometers, and here you can find a great variety of amazing products and services.
In the early period, Huaqiangbei was mainly specialized in electronic products. In recent years, more and more business owners have turned their eyes on cosmetics.
For this reason, Huaqiangbei is now mainly specialized in two aspects: Electronic products and cosmetics.
This famous commercial area is located near the downtown area of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, and therefore traffic there is convenient.
According to statistics, there are currently 23 professional markets in Huaqiangbei, including 14 large-scale commercial centers, each of which having over 10,000 square meters of operating area.
What Are “3C Products” of Huaqiangbei?
As we mentioned before, Huaqiangbei is mainly specialized in electronic products and cosmetics. It is the business hub of the so-called “3C products”, which include computer products, communication products, and consumer-electronics products.
For example, you not only can buy iPhone 12 in Huaqiangbei at a relatively low price, but also can buy all the accessories of iPhone 12 as you can possibly imagine, such as phone case, tempered-glass screen protector.
Electronic product manufacturers of Huaqiangbei are famous for being enterprising and creative. In the early period of this wonderland of electronic products, you can buy curiously-shaped mobile phones such as car-shaped mobile phones and cigarette box-shaped mobile phones.
What Are the Tips for Sourcing Products from Huaqiangbei?
Although Huaqiangbei is almost the best place to source products made in China, you still need to learn something about the business culture there before embarking on the buying journey. Here are some tips for you:
- As the Chinese saying goes, “A wise man shops around before he makes the decision to buy”. There are a great many shops in Huaqiangbei. For this reason, it’s easy for you to walk around and compare the prices, qualities, etc.
- Bargaining is a must. Do not accept an offer without bargaining. The business owners in Huaqiangbei are generally shrewd and experienced. It would be unlikely that they offer you the best price at the beginning.
- You’d better get ready to use Chinese payment tools like Alipay or WeChat Pay. You can easily download them from Google Play, Apple Store, etc. You only need to install one of them because almost every shop would offer payment services of Alipay and WeChat Pay at the same time.
- You may need to find a professional sourcing/dropshipping agent if you want to do business related to the Chinese market on a long term basis.
How Can You Get to Shenzhen?
Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport is located at Bao’an District, Shenzhen, China. It is 32 kilometers away from the urban area of Shenzhen.
The airport has direct flights to major cities in the world, including London (Heathrow Airport), Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Moscow, Paris (Charles de Gaulle Airport), Tokyo, Bangkok, Seol, Manila, Vancouver, etc.
You can visit the official website of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport for more details.
If there is no direct flight between Shenzhen and the city in which you are living, you may have to consider flight transfer. For example, you may consider flying from Kinshasa, the Republic of Zaire, to Doha, Qatar, and then from Doha to Shenzhen.
There is another solution which is probably more reasonable:
Shenzhen is immediately adjacent to Hong Kong, which is more famous and influential than the former as an international business hub and financial center. It generally takes 30-70 minutes for a tourist to travel from Hong Kong to Shenzhen (including 20-40 minutes for customs clearance).
For this reason, you may also set Hong Kong as the destination of your journey, and then go to Shenzhen by Metro, bus, or taxi.
You can visit the official website of Hong Kong International Airport for more details.
Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and a number of other smaller cities, such as Dongguan, Shunde, constitute a cluster of cities collectively referred to as Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
How Can You Get to Huaqiangbei from Shenzhen?
Huaqiangbei is approximately 4.3 kilometers from the downtown area of Shenzhen, and it generally takes less than 10 minutes for a tourist to cover the distance. You can go there by taxi, bus, Metro, or even by walking from your hotel!
The following is a Metro Map of Shenzhen:
What Are the Most Recommended Commercial Centers & Marketplaces in Huaqiangbei?
There are a great many commercial centers & marketplaces in Huaqiangbei. It would be a great idea for you to combine personally visiting Huaqiangbei and surfing the Internet for relevant information in advance.
The following commercial centers & marketplaces are the most recommended:
No.1: SEG Plaza (SEG Electronics Market)
SEG Plaza is a skyscraper located at Huaqiangbei, Futian District, Shenzhen. This plaza was directly invested and built by Shenzhen SEG Co., Ltd.
With a total height of 355.8 meters, the main building of SEG Plaza has 71 storeys, and covers a construction area of 164,300 square meters. It is currently the 5th tallest building in Shenzhen, and also the world’s tallest building constructed by reinforced concrete.
The 1st to 10th floors of SEG Plaza are the SEG Electronics Market, which was founded in 1988. This market covers a total business area of approximately 56,000 square meters, and has over 3, 000 shops.
Here the daily customer flow volume is 60,000-100,000, and the relevant shops have about 15,000 employees.
The business of SEG Electronics Market involves major categories like electronic spare parts, laptop and desktop computers (and the relevant spare parts), peripheral products, etc, and includes hundreds of thousands of product types.
At present, famous companies & brands which have set up their shops in SEG Plaza include IBM, Compaq, Epson, Acer, NEC, Philips, Kingsound, Lenovo, etc.
No.2 Feiyang Times Mansion (Second-hand Digital Products)
This market is famous for transactions of second-hand digital products, especially iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc.
You might have noticed a phenomenon: Second-hand digital products like iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc are very popular among your friends or relatives. You can easily catch sight of shops selling second-hand Apple products in the community where you live.
It’s true! Selling or buying second-hand digital products (especially Apple’s product series) has nowadays become a big business, and Huaqiangbei’s Feiyang Times Mansion is perhaps Asia’s largest wholesale market for this business niche.
If you are interested in sourcing second-hand digital products from China at relatively low prices and in great varieties, you may have to consider coming over to Huaqiangbei and visit Feiyang Times Mansion, which is a wonderful place for wholesalers and distributors.
No.3 Mingtong Digital City
This market is currently selling cosmetics, but as the name “Mingtong Digital City” is so influential and to some extent memorable, it is still kept there in the entrance of the market.
Mingtong Digital City used to be a marketplace selling digital products, but now it has been transformed into a marketplace selling cosmetics, due to the impact of E-commerce platforms.
Shenzhen is a very important business and transportation hub in the Greater China Region. Shop owners of Mingtong Digital City can source cosmetics of internationally-famous brands from duty-free shops around the world at relatively low prices.
No.4 Pacific Security Protection Market
Pacific Security Protection Market was founded in 2001 by Pacific Security (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.. It is located at the central part of Huaqiangbei, and was close to SEG Plaza, Mingtong Digital City, Huaqiang Electronic World, etc.
Covering a total business area of 1.5 square kilometers, and having approximately 2,000 shops, this marketplace is specialized in security protection-related electronic products.
It has attracted famous brands in the security protection industry to open shops there, such as Hikvision, TCL, Karassn, etc. To sum up, over 50% of China’s Top 100 enterprises of security protection have opened their shop here.
No.5 Huaqiang Electronic World
Huaqiang Electronic World is a large-scaled marketplace founded and operated by Shenzhen Huaqiang Holdings Limited in 1998.
It is specialized in six major product categories, including IC, security protection, LED, computer, digital, and communication products. The market also incorporates supporting facilities like maintenance centers, restaurant centers, etc.
After over ten years of steady development, Huaqiang Electronic World has accumulated abundant experience and resources. It has established strategic business partnerships with over 20,000 brands, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.
At present, the Group has set up 12 large-sized markets of electronic products in major cities like Shenzhen, Jinan, Shenyang, Shanghai, Liuzhou, Shaoguan, Huizhou, etc.
Backed by a prestigious Group and supported by a great many business partners, Huaqiang Electronic World will have a bright future.
Why Has Huaqiangbei Shifted Its Focus from Electronic Products to Cosmetics?
In recent years, business owners of Huaqiangbei have gradually shifted their business focus from electronic products to cosmetics. This is because of impacts from E-commerce platforms like Taobao, JD Mall, and Pinduoduo.
At first, some business owners had tried to sell clothes in order to deal with such impacts, but they failed, because selling clothes was still not a good strategy in the face of challenges posed by E-commerce.
After some painstaking efforts, a brand-new field of business which can protect these business owners from the impacts of E-commerce emerged: Selling cosmetics, especially those for women.
The business operation experience of shop owners of Huaqiangbei has proved that selling cosmetics previously sourced from duty-free shops around the world could be a good strategy to cope with the rising impacts of E-commerce platforms.
At present, professional markets like SEG Plaza, Feiyang Times Mansion, and Pacific Security Protection Market still stick to the traditional business pattern of selling 3C products or second-handed Apple products.
Other markets, such as Mingtong Digital City, Yuanwang Digital Market, SangDa Electronic Market, are gradually becoming marketplaces for shops selling cosmetics.
In the future, Huaqiangbei is expected to evolve into a commercial area mainly specialized in electronic products and cosmetics.
Why Has Shenzhen Become the Center of China’s Cross-border Electronic Commerce?
Shenzhen is China’s business center of cross-border E-commerce.
According to news report, over 50% of Chinese enterprises of cross-border E-commerce are headquartered in Guangdong Province, and 70% of these enterprises of Guangdong Province are headquartered in Shenzhen.
Before the year 1980, Shenzhen was only a “little fishing village” located at the southern part of Guangdong Province.
However, this little fishing village had a great advantage at that time: It was immediately adjacent to Hong Kong, which at that time was still a British colony.
In 1980, the Chinese government made the decision to establish special economic zones in cities like Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou. From then on, economic and social developments of Shenzhen took wings.
From 1980 to 2022, Shenzhen has grown to be one of the most dynamic and promising cities in the world.
Shenzhen has become the center of China’s cross-border Electronic Commerce because of the business atmosphere there.
In this city of wonders, small and medium-sized enterprises are encouraged, while Shenzhen citizens are famous for being enterprising.
The relevant economic policies favor an export-oriented economic development pattern, and the Shenzhen government is very willing to facilitate the development of cross-border Electronic Commerce.
Conclusion
Huaqiangbei is located at Shenzhen, China, and has been officially entitled to be the most important business hub of electronic products and cosmetics in this country.
At the same time, Shenzhen is the center of China’s cross-border electronic commerce.
In Huaqiangbei you will be able to source a great variety of products, such as the so-called “3C products”. Asia’s largest marketplace of second-hand digital products, such as iPhone, iPad, and Mac, is also in Huaqiangbei.
In recent years, some of Huaqiangbei’s shop owners have shifted the focus of their business from electronic products to cosmetics, in order to cope with impacts from E-commerce platforms like Taobao, JD Mall, and Pinduoduo.
This has resulted in a new business pattern which is more balanced and efficient for Huaqiangbei.
The transformation of Huaqiangbei has been successful because of the business atmosphere of Shenzhen, where export-oriented economy and SMEs are encouraged, and where citizens are famous for being enterprising.
If you have any questions about Huaqiangbei, leave your comment below and we’ll help you out. If you’re seeking ways of taking your dropshipping business to the next level, send us a message and we can be your helpful dropshipping agent.
