A USB light (above) for $0.11. A USB fan for $0.45. A 32GB Micro SD card for $2.13. A Smart watch for $9.74. An iPhone-controllable camera drone for $9.74. These were just some of the things this guy bought in the Huaqiangbei electronics market area of Shenzhen.
While most vendors in the markets will (grudgingly) sell you one of something, that's not really why they're there. HQB is where you go to buy new products in volume. The price for one of something is…a little bit higher than the unit price if you're buying a bunch of something.
Up until now, we've had only the vaguest sense of what volume purchase in the markets was really like. We, of course, were never going to be in the business of buying smartwatches, drones, or SD cards in volume. Or were we?
About a month back, Jesse asked friends on Twitter if they'd pay fifty bucks to get a box of random crap from Shenzhen. It quickly became clear that we weren't going to have any trouble finding customers for this one.
