A  recent article in the Guardian (Luxury brands in a quandary as China's wealthy young develop resistance to bling, September 21) caught my eye. According to the article, Western luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada are losing appeal for young Chinese consumers. Recent sales have been virtually flat, a surprise after a 30 percent growth in 2011, and the producers are apparently at a loss to explain the change.

This led me to ask myself: why are posh Western goods suddenly less desirable among Chinese youth?

There are a number of answers one could give, some of them hinted at in the article. For all of China's nouveau riche, the majority of youths remain unable to afford such luxury goods. Knock-off goods which look just like the real thing sell at a fraction of the price. And perhaps, it simply isn't cool anymore to be seen with the same luxury brands, particularly if older generations have them too. Chinese youth, like young people everywhere, want to stand out. How do you do that if your Gucci bag is the same as your grandmother's?

I think the biggest reason, however, is the rise of internet shopping. On the campus where I live, every day the sidewalk is littered with parcels bought online and awaiting pick-up. The volume of goods increases week by week, proving that the internet is the place to spend your money these days in China, rather than luxury stores in big shopping malls. Visit any mall in Beijing and you'll see more shop assistants than customers. Where are the customers? Online, of course, clicking away in search of the next bargain.

So it's surely no coincidence that Alibaba's profit just tripled in the second quarter of 2014 at the same time that luxury Western brands are reporting slack demand. Consumers only have so much cash to go around, and most of it is being spent online on sites like Alibaba's Taobao, which is why Alibaba's IPO in the US just raised an unbelievable $21 billion.

In the end, the hot money is following the Chinese consumer onto the world wide web in search of an exciting bargain rather than hanging around bricks-and-mortar stores stuffed full of dull, over-priced gear. The shopping habits of young Chinese consumers are no real mystery after all.

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.