Some shopping malls are offering the new service to customers who can hire “boyfriends’ to carry bags, give advice, take pictures, and chat. Nothing more.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – ‘Boyfriend-sharing’ services are now available in some Chinese shopping malls.
Customers can hire these ‘boyfriends’ to hold their shopping, provide advice on what to buy or give them someone to talk to, nothing more.
Consumers in China can already hire everything from bicycles and baby strollers to umbrellas with a swipe of their phone and the new service is already catching on.
The new service was launched in a shopping mall in the northern province of Hebei, Chinanews.com reported.
The latter shows young men dressed in smart jackets and bow ties standing inside display frames (pictured).
One sign showed the price – one yuan (16 US cents) for 30 minutes; another showed a QR code that customers could scan to pay for the service.
“Shared boyfriends offer services such as holding bags, taking photos, chatting and shopping,” the mall told its customers.
Malls in Hainan and Shandong have also reportedly opened similar services in the past few months.
A shared boyfriend working at a mall in Haikou City in the southern province of Hainan told Chinanews that his customers – usually women in their twenties – sometimes ask for his advice when they have difficulty in choosing what clothes to buy and also want to take selfies together to post on social media.
But lest anyone get the wrong impression about the services on offer, he added: “We must avoid physical contact. This is written in our regulations.”