The latest eruption of volcanic ash over Iceland has caused an explosion in the cost of European luxuries consumed in Beijing.

Residents in the capital who chase the latest trends in European fashion and food have often used "agents" in Western countries to purchase commodities on their behalf.

The agents, who mainly comprise Chinese people working or studying overseas, typically operate online stores in their spare time and charge a 10 percent commission on the cost of the purchased goods.

With the volcano in Iceland erupting again on Friday and the grounding of hundreds of European aircraft, many Beijingers have had to be patient while waiting for the arrival of favorite products such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel.

"The agents can normally save me around 30 percent on the cost of the same items bought in Beijing," said Zhao Pei, 29, a veteran among the capital's many young women obsessed with online luxury shopping.

Zhao said most of the online agents have raised their prices by between 10 and 15 percent since the volcano spewed ash and wrecked havoc on international air travel.

"The Euro exchange rate has kept on dropping," said Zhao. "It should be a good time to buy luxuries in Europe but short supply has led some stores to raise their prices."

Zhao said online shopping agents are still saying shoppers need 10 yuan to buy 1 Euro but the latest exchange rates mean it should really only take 8.8 yuan.

Several agents based in Europe who were contacted by METRO agreed that their business had been affected by the grounding of European airlines.

An agent surnamed Luo, who lives in Germany, said she has been telling clients to be patient while waiting for their orders.

"Products from Europe usually take 10 to 15 days to arrive in Beijing, so buyers of luxuries are used to waiting for their products," she said.

Hong Fang, an agent specializing in milk powder from Japan on China's largest e-commerce website, taobao.com, said some consumers had recently switched from buying European brands to Japanese brands.

"Europe is the biggest commercial competitor to Japan in the international milk powder market," she said.

Hong said most buyers pay close attention to the manufacturing dates and want to buy the freshest products, so delays caused by the ash cloud have caused many to think about buying from Japan.

Sun Duofei, chief operating officer with online luxury goods outlet 5lux.com, said 70 percent of the products it handles are from the United States.

"The sales volume during the past week has surprisingly increased by 20 percent but I'm not sure what caused that," she said.

Sun added that the flight disruptions might have affected her business and noted that one shipment she arranged from Europe took twice as long as usual to arrive in Beijing last week.

(China Daily May 12, 2010)