How Much Do Chinese People Love Gold?
A couple of years ago, people were still saying that the margins on gold jewelry are actually quite low. But last year (2023), Chinese consumers drove a gross margin premium out of it—gross margins shot up to 28%. That means when you buy a gram of gold jewelry, roughly 30% of what you pay is store profit. This even accelerated these gold jewelry brands’ expansion of physical stores—for example, Zhou Liu Fu was so confident in 2023 that its store count nearly doubled.
All of this was bought by Chinese consumers—more precisely, by consumers in China’s counties and small towns. Of that demand, about 65% came from wedding purchases.
If you buy gold jewelry from a retail store, the craftsmanship fee can run as high as 150 yuan per gram. If you buy gold bars from a bank and have them processed yourself, the crafting fee is only about 10 yuan per gram. Whether that saves you money depends on your own calculation.