Taobao: Bra sizes correlated to purchasing power

Purchasing power increases as bra sizes go up, Taobao.com, one of China's largest online commercial sites, revealed on August 8.

According to Taobao, 80 percent of women with G cups are high-end consumers, while 90 percent of B cup consumers are less generous in purchasing luxury goods. The percentage of high-end consumers with cup sizes from B to F are 0%, 4.5%, 5.9%, 7.1% and 6.9% respectively.

The data from Taobao also shows that those with higher purchasing power demand more in terms of breast enhancement, as they often choose seamless lingerie for the office during the daytime and sexy bras for night life. Women with high purchasing power also tend to choose inflatable bras priced at around 200 yuan (US$ 32.5) each, while students tend to choose invisible bras priced at 30 to 40 yuan each.

Although breast enhancement products have become a fad, customers' enthusiasm for such products has been declining in recent years, as the average consumption of bras has declined from 97 yuan in 2012 to 82 yuan in 2014.

Taobao.com's survey also revealed that men also purchase bras for women. Men above 40 with higher purchasing power tend to buy bras with obvious enhancement effects, while men with less income choose to buy less expensive bras, particularly leopard print ones, usually priced at 30 to 50 yuan.