Key Segments of Chinese Consumers

In this chapter, I look at a few broad specific segments of Chinese consumers and attempt a general classification of the Chinese consumers, with an objective to look at a few groups which may offer a certain degree of homogeneity of needs and warrant a certain degree of uniformity of approach for developing marketing strategies and tactics. These segments described here are not mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. For instance, millennials is a large group, which straddles young couples as well as singles, and is a critical target group for marketing for most brands. Similarly, women consumers are a part of all the other groups. However, women and millennials have been described separately as they have some special characteristics which deserve separate examination. Specifically, this book examines the following consumer groups, and tries to explain their importance and their peculiar characteristics which could be relevant for marketing to them: Gray consumers, who through sheer numbers in China offer a huge and a largely untapped market, which most marketers are slow to exploit Young couples, who are not only large in number but also at or approaching the peak of consumption, as they buy to get the best out of life as well as nurture the family China’s singles, which is a growing population as more and more people lead their life by themselves, voluntarily or by force of circumstance as they are unable to find a mate Chinese centennials, who are the youngest and the most distinctive of the consumer groups (These four groups mentioned above are mutually exclusive and collectively form the large part of the consumers in China) Chinese millennials, who may have very little in common with their Western counterparts, as they grew up and came of age in an entirely different environment Chinese women consumers, who because of their own means of income (China has one of the largest proportion of women working outside the home) have created an enormous market Lower tier city consumers and migrant workers, who offer unique characteristics because of their background and where they come from