China Herald: Inflation undermines consumer confidence

Shaun Rein

Rising food prices are worrying China's consumers, tells business analyst Shaun Rein in CNBC. Although he also discovered the women keep on shopping for now, although their buying habits changed dramatically.

Shaun Rein:

My company interviewed 500 consumers in five cities last month. We found consumer confidence to be at the lowest point since the start of the financial crisis in 2008 with dissatisfaction largely stemming from inflation.

However, there is a silver lining. Women consumers in China are still willing to spend, but how and what they spend on is changing dramatically. Western brand managers need to understand these changes and adjust their product selections as well as marketing messages or else they will make mistakes and end up retreating from the market as Best Buy and Barbie did. Instead of cutting back on spending, we found the vast majority of women - perhaps surprisingly given the overall gloom - were spending more.

However, they were seeking value more than ever before in their purchases... On the good side spending is actually growing for the aspiring middle classes and above. To capture this growing segment, brand managers need to understand that women consumers are more focused on value rather than price and are researching their purchases.

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Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.