Vendors at Hong Kong product fair report slow sales amid Shenzhen shopping boom

Thousands of people flocked to the 57th Hong Kong Brands and Products Expo in Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park on Sunday, in the hopes of capitalising on last-minute deals before the event wrapped up a day later.

The 24-day expo has hosted 400 exhibitors and more than 900 booths offering big discounts on food, home appliances and health supplements. The deli section had also returned after four years of pandemic restrictions.

Allen Shi Lop-tak, president of the Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong, which organised the event, said many renowned local brands had rejoined the expo, while foot traffic and business activity had managed to surpass pre-Covid levels.

“I don’t have the figures yet as the expo will end on Monday,” he said. “But exhibitors told me the overall vibe is good and business went pretty well.”

But Kelvin Lee Chun-hei, assistant sales manager at the Good Point Food Company, said business activity had fallen by an estimated 10 per cent from the previous year, even as cheaper items such as canned abalone generated more sales.

The company’s bestseller was a goodie bags going for HK$200 (US$25.6) that included 10 cans of abalone, a cup of turtle herbal jelly, a portion of eight treasure congee and 200 grams of mushrooms, he said.

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Lee added that shoppers were less interested in products such as fish maw, dry scallops and caterpillar fungus – which had all logged weaker sales compared with last year.

“The abalone cans sold more than in 2022, but overall sales figures are definitely dropping,” he said. “Footfall picked up during free admission at night in the past few days, but it was quiet last week. Residents travelling abroad had an impact.”

The vendor said he had started including two packs of sesame oil jellyfish in the goodie bags in the hopes of attracting more sales before the expo closed on Monday.

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Bargain hunter Au Mei-sheung and her husband came away from the event with two goodie bags, but said she had already gone to Shenzhen last month to do her Lunar New Year shopping and spent HK$3,000, mostly on canned food and snacks.

“I just came to check if I had missed anything for Lunar New Year,” the 62-year-old homemaker said. “The expo definitely offers many good deals, but I have got everything I need at relatively cheaper prices in Shenzhen. We spent more at the food stalls than anything else this year. It feels nice to have a place to chill out and eat.”

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Amy Cheung, who works at a booth selling dried seafood, also said that fewer people had come to the expo and sales had been weaker than expected.

“Although some people have come to spend thousands of dollars on fish maw and hundreds of dollars on dry scallops, you can tell there is a lot fewer people here than the previous year,” she said. “You can’t help but think people are travelling north instead.”

Office secretary Yiu Cheuk-shan, 43, was among Sunday’s bargain hunters and spent HK$3,500 on cans of abalone, as well as some bags of dry scallops and mushrooms. She said she had spent about HK$2,000 less than last year.

“After 2023, I realised I needed to spend my money more cautiously. I used to just buy something at the expo if the prices were right,” Yiu said. “This time, I compared the things I wanted at various booths before I made decisions.”