免税行业深度探究（一）：免税、进口跨境电商、一般贸易、海淘业态详细对比分析-东吴证券（香港）

Equity Research·Industry Research·Retail Retail Industry Research 1 / 24 东吴证券（香港） 请务必阅读正文之后的免责声明部分 [Table_Main] Comparative analysis of duty-free shopping, cross-border e-commerce, typical imports and overseas online shopping. Outperform (Maintain) Investment Thesis ◼ In this report, we systematically collate four types of customs clearance for imported consumer goods; measure the cost differences for each category through different customs clearance, and further quantify how three different import patterns affect the gross margins in perfumes & cosmetics, luxuries and wine. Imported consumer goods are broadly divided into four patterns of customs clearance: typical imports, cross-border e-commerce, duty-free and overseas online shopping, which are applied to different tax rates. Also, the tax rates for different goods are quite different. ◼ Typical imports and overseas online shopping are theoretically the most costly options while cross-border e-commerce is relatively favorable and duty-free is optimal. Duty-free shopping shows huge competitiveness in tax payment during importing in categories like luxurious jewelry, watches, perfumes & cosmetics, tobacco & alcohol. Specifically, tax cost of above categories through other import channels are generally 20%-50% higher than through duty-free shopping; for premium cigarettes the tax cost difference even as high as more than 100%. For other categories of products, the tax cost difference between cross-border e-commerce and duty-free is within 10%, and the difference between typical imports/overseas online shopping and duty-free shopping is around 20%, which is relatively low but still a cost that cannot be ignored. ◼ By quantitatively measuring the impact of three import channels (duty-free shopping, cross-border e-commerce, typical imports) on gross margins of three types of goods, we draw the following conclusion: 1) The tax-saving advantage of tax-free sales is huge in categories such as high-end perfumes & cosmetics, luxuries and, tobacco & alcohol, three types of tax (tariffs, consumption tax, VAT) of which are relatively high. 2) Assuming the final retail prices are specific multiples of CIF for each type of goods and considering a price range from 60%-off to full price (above break-even point), gross margins for duty-free retail can generally improve by 2% to 11% relative to cross-border e-commerce, and 9% to 30% relative to the typical imports. 3)The more discounts on goods, the lower gross margins under the three import patterns. However, the degree of decline is smaller when using duty-free sales. In other words, as the actual transaction price of goods falls, the cost advantage of duty-free is more obvious rather than weakened, compared with cross-border e-commerce and typical imports. ◼ We propose that the factors impacting gross margins should be distinguished into long-term and short-term effects. The gross margin’s downward movement due to sales structure shifting t