After waiting for more than five hours, Xiao Xiao (a pseudonym), a post-90s, finally got her newly made gold bracelet the gold counter.
During the Spring Festival, the custom of adding gold at the end of the year has brought a new wave of gold buying to gold shops. However with the domestic gold price reaching new highs, the price of pure gold jewelry in most brand gold shops exceeds 835 yuan per gram, which deters many.

How can one balance the preservation and decoration functions of gold? Young people who love gold and pursue personalized jewelry have finally found their high-cost-performance choice in their minds "making gold".

High gold prices have led to a surge in "gold mining" among young people.
"The recent high gold prices make it really painful to buy gold jewelry, and the labor costs are really too high," Xiao Xiao told China News Finance. After experiencing a nearly 30% increase in international gold prices in2024, she, who used to adhere to the concept of "the more expensive, the more to buy," finds it difficult to pay an additional thousands yuan in high labor costs for a piece of gold jewelry.
The latest statistical data released by the China Gold Association shows that in 2024, China's consumption reached 985.31 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 9.58%. Among them, gold jewelry consumption was 53.02 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 24.69%, and the overall consumption of gold jewelry was weak, with a decline in inventory turnover. At the same time, the consumption of gold bars and coins increased by 24.54% year-on-year, reaching 373.1 tons.

During the visit, China News Finance found that many young people are reducing the cost of obtaining gold jewelry by "buying gold bars   gold". In addition to high cost performance, the rise of the national trend has also made more and more young consumers fall in love with ancient gold jewelry. Many gold are no longer limited to traditional styles, and have designed more styles that combine traditional cultural elements with modern aesthetic trends.
"The price of labor for making gold depends on the process." A salesperson at a gold shop told China News Finance that the labor cost for simple process gold jewelry is as low as 10 yuan/gram, the labor cost for complex process gold jewelry can be tens of yuan/gram.
For example, a brand of coiled gold bracelet with a gold weight of 3.88g has a labor cost of as high as 3490 yuan/piece, which is about 106 yuan/gram. The labor price of ordinary gold shops is 30-40 yuan/gram, ignoring the loss of grams, the most can save nearly 2500 yuan and this difference is enough to let consumers buy another piece of gold jewelry.