Forbes: Helen H. Wang
At a time when China’s home furnishings market surged 17 percent, the largest U.S. home improvement company Home Depot has been struggling and closed five stores since it entered the China market in 2006.
Image by detbuzzsaw via Flickr
Analysts pointed to the fact that a “do it yourself” culture does not exist in China. True. Because labor costs are relatively low, many homeowners would rather hire someone to do the work than do it themselves. Apparently, Home Depot made the same mistake as some other companies that entered China without understanding the local market, which is often dramatically different from their home market.
Unlike consumers in the West, Chinese consumers have no role model from older generations. Home ownership was non-existent about fifteen years ago. It was then very common for a family, sometimes three generations, to share a 300-square-feet room that they used for sleeping, eating and daily activities. A kitchen was not even a necessity as many people simply cooked in a common area outside their room. Continue reading Why Home Depot Struggles and IKEA Thrives in China?
There are a number of predictions for the future growth of the Chinese middle class from Goldman Sacks, the Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey Global Institute. The numbers are more or less the same.
In my forthcoming book The Chinese Dream, I mainly cite predictions from the McKinsey report From ‘Made in China’ to ‘Sold in China’: The Rise of the Chinese Urban Consumer. (For the definition of the Chinese middle class, please see my previous post).
Continue reading The Growth of the Chinese Middle Class
Today, I received an email from a friend of mine from Beijing, announcing his new online start-up La miu (www.lamiu.com) – a China’s Victoria Secret to be. This is at least the second “China’s Victoria Secret” I have heard among my circles of friends. The other one is Herbella (www.herbella.cn) in Shanghai. Who knows how many more are out there?
The message is clear, though, that the consumer market in China is booming. Continue reading China’s Victoria Secret
I arrived in Chongqing in the late afternoon of May 12th, without knowing about the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan, which is about 200 miles northwest of Chongqing. The taxi driver told me that even people in Beijing and Shanghai felt the quake. I knew the situation was pretty severe.
Continue reading Chongqing
Since my last post about the definition of the Chinese middle class was considered “all too simple,” I dug out a comprehensive study: Emergence of the Chinese middle class and its implications. It’s a well-researched and well-documented research paper by He Li. The paper approaches the definition of the Chinese middle class from different angles such as lifestyle, income classification, occupation, and self-perception, and here is what it says:
Economists and sociologists have defined what they believe will compose the Chinese “middle class” of the future. They suggest that five categories of people will represent the middle class: scientific development entrepreneurs, Chinese managerial staff working in foreign firms in China, middle level managerial staff in state-owned financial intuitions, professional technicians in various fields, especially in intermediary firms, and some self-employed private entrepreneurs. Continue reading More on Demystify China’s Middle Class
