I left China to go to graduate school in the US when I was 22, right at the time when I should have become a mainstream Chinese consumer.\u00a0 Instead, I became re-socialized (or \u201cacculturated\u201d in academic terminology) into an American consumer.\u00a0 Recently I was able to make a nearly month-long trip to China.\u00a0 With some distance now established from my home culture, I was able to observe with a fresh pair of eyes the unique characteristics of Chinese consumers and to reacquaint myself with values and behaviors that I had taken for granted before I left China 11 years ago.\u00a0 In this blog, I discuss three things that I observed about Chinese consumer behavior during my trip.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0Chinese consumers are highly brand conscious.\u00a0 The shopping malls I visited in China were dominated by boutique stores from famous (a.k.a. expensive) designer labels such as Burberry, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Chanel.\u00a0 Perhaps more surprisingly, these stores were brimming with shoppers who were actually buying.\u00a0 Yes, having such a high concentration of luxury stores is a ready manifestation of the higher income level in a more developed China.\u00a0 But with most consumers\u2019 monthly income still only enough to buy, say, two $200 Burberry shirts, the popularity of these luxury brands reveals the brand-consciousness among Chinese consumers.\u00a0 Even for less expensive purchases such as milk, snacks, and liquor, well-known brand names disproportionately dominate the market.\u00a0 Why are Chinese consumers so brand conscious? I infer that it has to do with the inconsistent quality of products sold in China.\u00a0 As a newly developed market economy, China has not yet established a sound market self-regulation mechanism.\u00a0 Consequently, consumers do not yet trust vendors in the marketplace.\u00a0 The mistrust goes the other way too, as most stores carry a no-return policy, increasing the risks associated with each purchase.\u00a0 The outcome?\u00a0 Chinese consumers flock to established brand names to reduce risk and protect their own welfare.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0Consumer trends travel fast in China.\u00a0 Being in a collectivistic culture, Chinese consumers tend to have closer interactions with each other than people from a more individualistic culture such as America.\u00a0 People talk to each other more often and are more likely to have closer or even overlapping personal spaces.\u00a0 Adding the lack of confidence in vendors, word of mouth becomes extremely powerful in consumers\u2019 purchase decisions.\u00a0 Once a new trend is initiated, it tends to travel very fast across the population.\u00a0 You may find, for example, many households to become equipped with soy milk machines over the course of a short period of time.\u00a0 Another helping factor is the unique media landscape.\u00a0 Although TV channels have proliferated in China in the last twenty years, the CCTV channels are still the dominant provider of national and international news.\u00a0 With their high viewership, these channels are able to exert an unduly influence on consumer opinions and offer advertisers a way to reach a big mass of consumers (imagine Superbowl every day).<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0Consumption in China is public.\u00a0 It is well-known that Asian cultures put more emphasis on education.\u00a0 But I experienced a more \u201cpublic\u201d version of this value.\u00a0 In a discussion among friends about sending their toddlers to kindergartens and schools, I overheard parents reluctantly acknowledge a pressure to send their kids to the best of schools, even if these schools come with an astronomical price tag that they can barely afford.\u00a0 Their arguments were that they want to give their kids the best start, but even more importantly, not to look like they are being cheap on their kids in front of their colleagues and friends.\u00a0 This \u201cpublicity of consumption\u201d is further fueled by the collectivistic culture, through a higher level of willingness to meddle in someone else\u2019s business (i.e., people will talk, even in front of you) and through a higher pressure to conform to the norm.<\/p>\n
I should conclude this blog with a footnote that these are only my short-term observations and undoubtedly carry with them my own individual bias and the special environment of the two metropolitan cities that I visited (Hong Kong and Shenzhen).\u00a0 So they are only intended to stimulate the thinking of those who might be interested in marketing to Chinese consumers rather than function as golden rules of Chinese consumer behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently I was able to make a nearly month-long trip to China. With some distance now established from my home culture, I was able to observe with a fresh pair of eyes the unique characteristics of Chinese consumers and to reacquaint myself with values and behaviors that I had taken for granted before I left China 11 years ago. In this blog, I discuss three things that I observed about Chinese consumer behavior during my trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,27],"tags":[77,76,75,74],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-demographic_stats","category-reality_check","tag-china","tag-consumer-culture","tag-cross-cultural-marketing","tag-culture","post-archive"],"yoast_head":"\n