Vacuum cleaners,
well most western households have one, and so do I. Now nothing wrong with that, I suppose, except the vacuum cleaner bag is full full, so what to do, well you go on the search for replacements.

Normally you would think that's easy, well in Nanjing at least, it is not.

I have been to most supermarkets, Auchan, Suguo etc. Metro, B&Q and Ikea etc. but you know what, they all sell vacuum cleaners (except Ikea) but not the bags, even for the brands they have in stock. Having asked the question "where to buy and showing the sales person the bag inside the vacuum cleaner they sell" the answers were "ask the producer of the brand"

My question is: what do people do after they have bought a vacuum cleaner and the bag needs to be replaced?

I suppose the obvious is to make one yourself. I have tried and it doesn't work.

Sounds like a typical conundrum of the expat in china... Unfortunately I cannot advise but for others, buy bag-less like a Dyson.

Just one thing that may help though, if you can speak Chinese or know someone who can, try Taobao - they have many things which are hard to find from brewers yeast to vacum bags too I'd say. You should try a few different Chinese terms when searching there though before you find what you want.