Chinese manufacturers are invading Tiktok and other social networking applications with direct appeals to US consumers, encouraging them to buy luxury items directly from their factories. Amid the threats of very high rates on Chinese exports, Americans seem to be adhering by weight.
The proposal of the videos is that people can buy leggings and bags like those of brands such as Lululemon, Hermès and Birkenstock, but for a price fraction. Often they say – often falsely – that products are made in the same factories that produce for these brands.
American influencers have embraced this trend, promoting factories, and boosting the downloads of Chinese purchasing applications such as DHgate and Taobao, as a way to save if prices shoot with the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on Chinese imports. Last week, DHgate was one of 10 most downloaded apps at Apple and Google stores.
The videos are firing in popularity on Tiktok and Instagram, accumulating millions of views and thousands of likes. Many of the posts also seem to have generated Americans sympathy for China in the comments, with phrases such as “Trump attacked the wrong country” and “China won this war.”
These videos offer a rare opportunity for owners of Chinese factories and workers to talk directly to American consumers through social networking applications that are technically prohibited in China. The growing popularity in the United States also highlights an increasingly vocal support to China on networks, similar to the commotion caused by the possible ban on Tiktok by the US government.
“It is politicizing people similarly to what we have seen during the threat of Tiktok banishment, but now in the context of tariffs and the general relationship between the two countries,” said Matt Pearl, director specializing in technological issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This demonstrates their ability to communicate with American consumers and convey a message about our dependence on Chinese products.”
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Pearl suggested that the Chinese government may be allowing the proliferation of these videos, as it usually discourages its citizens from posting content that violates registered brands from western companies.
China’s embassy in Washington and the Chinese consulate in New York did not respond to requests for comment.
According to Margot Hardy, an analyst at Graphika (Social Network Analysis Company), the volume of videos on Tiktok encouraging users to buy directly from Chinese factories increased almost 250% in the week of April 13. On April 23, the #chineseFactory hashtag had 29,500 tiktok publications and 27,300 on Instagram.
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Retail experts – and salespeople in China – say they are unlikely that the most viral videos, who claim to manufacture products to brands such as Lululemon and Hermès, are selling authentic products. According to Sucharita Kodali, Forrester’s retail analyst, these factories usually sign rigorous agreements of confidentiality and hardly risk their long -term relationships with large brands to sell directly some products.
Kodali added that the Chinese government seems to be allowing the spread of the videos.
“Currently, protecting the interests of brands such as Lululemon or Chanel in China should be in a hundredth place on the priority list of Chinese trade ministers,” he said. She also stated that manufacturers may be running to close sales before new rates, scheduled for May 2, add heavy rates to China package shipments.
Despite doubts about the veracity of products, demand remains high.
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Elizabeth Henzie, 23, from Mooresville, North Carolina, said she was impressed by the manufacturing costs and retail prices described in the videos. She has created a spreadsheet with factories that claim to sell “replicas” of sneakers, luxury bags and other products, and put the link on her Tiktok profile. The publication has accumulated more than 1 million views.
Henzie now works as an affiliated partner of DHgate, receiving free products to make evaluation videos and a commission for sales generated from their links. She said she believed people in China are trying to help Americans.
“Seeing how other countries are trying to help American consumers have increased my mood,” said Henzie. “Even though it’s something negative what’s going on in the US, I think it’s also uniting us.”
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Tiktok, which belongs to the Chinese company Bytedance, said it is removing some of the videos, citing its policy that prohibits the promotion of counterfeit products. Still, many videos continue to circulate through reposting. Old videos about Chinese factories are also reappearing on custom feeds, driven by the great interest in tariffs. Tiktok and Instagram (belonging to the goal) did not comment.
Vendors in China said they started posting the videos after the fall in sales.
36 -year -old Yu Qiule, a co -owner of a fitness equipment factory in Shandong Province, said he started using Tiktok in mid -March to find more customers after a wave of cancellations caused by tariffs.
Louis LV, Hongye’s Export Manager Jewelry Factory in Yiwu (Zhejiang Province), said his company started posting at Tiktok at the end of 2024 due to the slowdown in internal sales.
He reported that the views of his videos fired after the announcement of tariffs by the Trump administration.
“The philosophy of Chinese entrepreneurs is: let’s go where the business is,” said lv.
In one of Tiktok’s most popular videos, a man holds what he claims to be a Hermès Birkin bag and reveals production costs in a factory. (The original video and the account have been removed, but versions still circulate through reposting.)
He says the scholarship costs less than $ 1,400 to be manufactured, while Hermès sells the item for $ 38,000 for the brand only. According to him, he used the same leather and hardware to replicate the bags without the logo, and sells them for $ 1,000.
A Hermès spokesman said his bags “are 100% manufactured in France” and refused to comment more.
A Birkenstock spokesman stated that the videos show “replicas” and that their shoes are developed and produced in the European Union. The company said it had contacted Tiktok and that the original videos were excluded on April 15.
