As someone younger on HN, I see a lot of people my age buying stuff from Taobao even though it is specifically for Chinese people. There's a lot of hype around

As someone younger on HN, I see a lot of people my age buying stuff from Taobao even though it is specifically for Chinese people. There's a lot of hype around counterfeit luxury clothing and shoes ('reps' of nike, adidas, supreme, etc.) because they are extremely cheap on Chinese sites but look close (and sometimes '1:1') to the real thing. They use agents that speak Chinese and live in China that can order what the consumer wants on Taobao and then ship it to them in the west independently. You can see some examples and discussion on /r/fashionreps. Even beyond that, plenty of sports fans I know buy jerseys from Alibaba because the official ones are way too expensive for young people in the Midwest. I also personally know a guy that makes money using a python bot to get shoes when they release and resell them with a markup when they're sold out. It might be more difficult to use some of these sites, but for many the savings are worth the inconvenience of navigating foreign sites, and there's a big market for the goods it sells.