水货

• Pinyin: shuǐ huò
• Hanzi breakdown: 水 = water (flowing, informal); 货 = 化 (transform) + 贝 (shell/money) — goods that transform through informal money channels

Meaning

Grey-market goods; parallel imports. Products imported outside official channels, typically to avoid taxes or restrictions, or counterfeit goods of inferior quality.

In Hong Kong and mainland China, 水货 commonly refers to electronics, cosmetics, or baby formula brought in through unofficial channels to exploit price differences. The term also colloquially means a person who is incompetent or a fraud.

Examples

1. 他在网上买的手机是水货，没有官方保修服务。 The phone he bought online was a gray-market import and didn’t come with an official warranty.
2. 海关人员在口岸查获了一批价值数百万元的水货奢侈品。 Customs officers seized a batch of gray-market luxury goods worth several million yuan at the port of entry.
3. 别找他来做项目，他是个水货，完全不懂技术。 Don’t bring him onto the project—he’s a total fraud and doesn’t understand the technology at all.

Usage Guide

Context: commerce, consumer goods, slang

Tone: negative

Do Say

• 购买水货虽然价格便宜，但售后服务和产品质量往往无法保证。(Buying grey-market goods may be cheaper, but after-sales service and product quality are often unreliable.)
• 该平台已被监管部门查处，原因是长期销售水货化妆品。(The platform was investigated by regulators for long-term sales of parallel-import cosmetics.)

Don't Say

• 水货 ≠ 二手货 (second-hand goods) — 水货 specifically means parallel imports or fakes, not used items; do not conflate the two

Origin & History

水 (water, flowing/unofficial channels) + 货 (goods) — goods that flow through unofficial waterway-like channels

Cultural Context

Generation: Millennials and Gen Z

Social background: Universal