Doing Business in China For Dummies®

Appealing to the Chinese Consumer

In general, foreign companies selling in China win customers by offering three things:

✓	Technology
✓	Superior quality
✓	A higher-end image

Historically, Chinese consumers were worried about only one thing: price. They never asked “where’s the beef?” as long as the price was low enough. The Chinese are now becoming more sophisticated consumers, although commanding a premium can be tough for your product or service if you aren’t selling to high-end customers.

You’re going to have a very hard time competing on price with Chinese companies, but one of the positives about the Chinese market is that high-end consumers are very willing to try new things. However, don’t assume that if you market it, they will come. In order to maintain consistent appeal to Chinese consumers, you have to make a number of adjustments, which we discuss in the following sections.

Knowing your customer

“Know thy customer” is one of the first rules of marketing. The following sections can help you figure out just who may be interested in your product or service and how they’ll react to your offering.

Viewing a portrait of the Chinese consumer class

Unlike in the West, most of the money in China belongs to people who are younger than 45. Because of the cultural revolution (see Chapter 3), people older than that generally aren’t well educated, live in government subsidized housing, ...