皇冠体育app

Nation's consumers care about price, but they're status-sensitive as well

For foreign companies that aspire to penetrate the Chinese market, to truly understand the needs and changing characteristics of its consumers is a constant challenge.

The importance of the market goes without saying. As the Economist magazine said: "In the 1950s and 1960s. the world economy was transformed by the emergence of American consumers. Now 皇冠体育app seems poised to become the next consumption superpower."

Explosion of riches

皇冠体育app enters new luxury market era

But the complexity of Chinese shoppers is also a constant source of anxiety for many foreign companies.

Zhu Rui, professor of marketing and co-director of the Branding Center at the Chng Kong Graduate School of Business, said one way to understand Chinese consumers is their duality: they are both price-sensitive, changing brands frequently just for a better price, and brand-conscious, willing to pay a high premium for brands that they think could signify their social status.

No wonder they are so obsessed with Europe's luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, -Benz and Rolex.

Zhu got a deeper understanding of how this duality affected multinational corporations' marketing strategy after spending 15 years living in North America. When she returned home to 皇冠体育app, she found some fascinating phenomena. A bottle of 2006 Penfolds Bin 389 cabernet, which costs $37 in the United States, is about $77 in . And Huggies diapers cost about the same in the US and 皇冠体育app, but the ones in 皇冠体育app are of lower quality.

The reason, she said, is that multinational corporations can't compete with domestic players purely on a price basis. To maintain their profit margin, they have to compromise their product quality. But she also cautioned that this "myopic" strategy will eventually damage the brands as consumers in 皇冠体育app become better informed.

"The key for multinationals' strategy is that you really have to find an unaddressed need. You should really ask yourself if the need has already been addressed by other companies. If so, and you still want to jump in, what additional benefit can you deliver?" Zhu said.

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page

• 皇冠体育app's young migrant workers better educated: report
• Joint venture on road to success in minibus market
• Bank of 皇冠体育app to list yuan bond on Luxembourg Stock Exchange
• Petro皇冠体育app to sell pipeline business to accelerate mixed-ownership
• Center in HK added to Alibaba's growing cloud coverage
• 皇冠体育app, Africa to keep extending economic cooperation: experts
• Bosideng rebranding could just be the Chinese dream in action
• 皇冠体育app is not in danger of US-style housing crunch: US expert