A spokeswoman for the minister responsible for consumer protection, Kelly O'Dwyer, said Australian law did not give the government powers to restrict retail sales. A small business in Preston, which sends infant formula to China, says Australian supermarket receipts are a "certificate of authenticity". "In general, the CCA does not regulate a business' decision about who to sell to," she said. A spokesman for Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, said national export laws focused on the quality of goods exported not the availability of produce in Australia, and the department did not regulate exports under 10 kilograms. "The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources does not have a role in the domestic market for infant formula," the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, daigou shopping, as it is known, occurs quickly and conveniently on sites like WeChat, a social media app developed in China that is a cross between Facebook and Twitter. One daigou shopper said she simply posts a message to her friends asking what they need, who then repost it to their friends and so on. Once people find her to be a reliable source of Australian products, they place more orders. WeChat also has a MyWallet function, which allows users to transfer money to each other. The MyWallet function could not yet be linked to Australian bank accounts, which means the profits from daigou shopping often stay off shore. Meanwhile highly organised daigou syndicates open up "shops" on websites like TMall, a subsidiary of the $US25 billion AliBaba website. The Tmall shops advertise a range of Australian products that were easily available in supermarkets and chemists. The shop owners then recruit shoppers to buy products as they were ordered. One person explained it thus: "Pretty much you buy it, take a photo where you got it, [and] bring a docket. Go to a health food store like the many in Eastwood [Shopping Centre in Sydney's north east] and they buy it off you, and your receipt and off you go. They pay your cost and extra for a tin. You can have the money sent to a relative in China or you can get cash."

Other Australian products in demand include honey and, more recently, pet foods, he added. Demand for baby formula remains strong due to a 2008 poisoning scandal in China that saw 54,000 infants hospitalised. A chemist working at Eastwood Shopping Centre said it was hard to predict what would be in demand from week to week, but whatever was popular would quickly sell out. She said customers would just go to another chemist if they couldn't find what they needed. "There are so many pharmacies," she added. Chemist Warehouse recently announced plans to open its own stall on TMall, baby-formula manufacturer Bellamy's also opened a Tmall, and A2 Milk operates "genuine online stores with JD.com, Tmall and VIP", according to chief executive of its Australian operations, Peter Nathan. However, given the high amount of counterfeiting on Tmall, many Chinese still prefer to buy food and vitamins directly from a trusted source in Australia. The tins from online shops were reported to be subtly different, which scared parents. And prices were hugely inflated - a tin of Bellamy's toddler milk cost CNY230 ($AUD49.95) on JD.com, but only $22.95 in Coles. It costs just $7 per kilo to send parcels to China.

Meanwhile the Australian government should impose restrictions on parallel exporting of baby-formula, according to a team of economists from Deakin University. They recently found the large-scale exporting of baby formula to China outside of official export channels - known as parallel imports - was affecting the welfare of Australian consumers by creating temporary shortages. One Sydney mother told Fairfax Media she recently watched up to 15 men receiving $50 notes inside a supermarket on Broadway so they could each buy their two tins, before returning again and again until the group had purchased nearly 40 tins of formula. Professor Pasquale Sgro, who co-authored the paper published in The World Economy, said "there are ways of stopping this, but they are really expensive ways". These included introducing limits on how many tins an individual can take out of the country, and then adding more border controls and searching parcels.

"One expects that [shortages] will be a short-term phenomenon because the domestics suppliers will increase supply to take advantage of high demand," he added. The paper concludes that cracking down on organised syndicates would do more to help Australians than introducing limits on individual purchases. The economists looked at Hong Kong's experience, where cross-border smuggling has lead to milk powder and formula shortages for years. Hong Kong introduced a two-tin limit in 2013 for people taking baby formula out of the country, punishable by up to two years jail.









