Chinese influencers are posing outside the country's only Costco and pretending they're in LA

• Chinese influencers are posing outside Costco's store in Shanghai pretending they're in LA.
• The influencers are getting creative at a time when travel outside China is off the cards.

With international travel restrictions still in place in China, local influencers have found a clever way to transport themselves to the US without boarding a long-haul flight: posing outside the country's only Costco store and pretending they're in Los Angeles.

A viral tweet, earlier reported by Quartz, shows a collage of posts shared on Chinese social media platforms by influencers at Costco Shanghai.

One post shared on the Xiaohongshu social media app, which shows an influencer posing under the Costco logo on the side of the Shanghai store, is captioned: "Pretending to be in Los Angeles ... Costco is really great, the pictures taken there really have the vibe of being in LA!

"If you babes also want to take such pictures I suggest you arrive here at around 4 pm, when the light is good … and remember to wear clothes with brighter colors!"

The posts seem to be an effective means of generating new "foreign" content at a time when international travel from China is effectively banned. The Chinese influencers don't appear to be tricking their followers into thinking they're actually in California, though.

Costco opened its first store in China in 2019 to great fanfare. The Shanghai opening was so popular that the store was forced to close within a few hours because it couldn't cope with the swarm of shoppers.

Costco is preparing to open its second store in China in the city of Suzhou, close to Shanghai. These stores will sell mostly local products and also stock US favorites such as rotisserie chickens.