I lived in Beijing in 1999-2000. Went to a furniture shop to look for something.
I see there a family of 3 choose furniture and point a fairly large sofa. They leave the sofa there and pack themselves in their Mercedes and drive off.
Two guys carry the sofa out, and pack it on a tricycle, with a remarkably high-placed centre of mass for the whole. One guy rides off with the transport bike, presumably trusting that there is a servant at the destination helping him out to carry it to the apartment.
You can do this, but I suppose it requires quite large income inequalities for people to be willing to work with it.
