As luxury retailers rush to open fresh stores in China, are these branded stores starts showrooms for online shopping?
With the Chinese middle rank not much more than a decade old, Chinese consumerism is developing in the age of the online and is developing in a special way than Western consumers might expect.
Mulligan’s firm researches online customer activity in Shanghai, China’s most advanced consumer marketplace. DDMA thinks that the habit of Shanghai customers will predict behavior of consumers across the country.
Based on this study, DDMA has known several factors driving Chinese customers to purchase online. The most significant of these include location, poor sales employees, and perceived reliability of goods.
As Chinese cities develop, retailers have been unable to keep up with urban sprawl. Several young Chinese families are locating in “dormitory suburbs” areas with lots of affordable housing but only some retail outlets. And not only do lengthy commutes into town make online shopping attractive to customers online orders often include a delivery speed that seems “instant” to Western shoppers.
