An increasing number of fashion and beauty product shoppers are turning to online sites in preference to bricks-and-mortar outlets, Tiffany Tan reports.

Lu Yiqing loves to shop but detests going to shopping malls. Instead, she spends about an hour each week browsing foreign online shopping sites for clothes, shoes, accessories, makeup and other beauty products. "Goods at local malls are quite expensive, and their prices usually don't correspond to their quality," Lu says, adding that the clothes and shoes she orders overseas usually cost a third of their price tags in China.

The 24-year-old Shanghai resident became a fan of online shopping - as well as British and Italian fashion brands - while studying for her master's degree in England two years ago. Now she makes a handful of purchases on her laptop each month while waiting for foreign retailers' big summer and Christmas sales.