Sorry, you have not enabled Javascript for your internet browser, so some of our website's pages may not render as fully as intended.
Please Click here for easy instructions on how to enable Javascript on your browser or consult your IT support staff for help.

News on Consumers & Retail in China

1 2 3 4 5... 52

Luxury labels look beyond the pandemic for China profits
May 20, 2022 (WiC 585)

Wearied by weeks of home lockdowns, the fashion-conscious residents of Shanghai found a new way of lifting their spirits last month. With virus prevention officials making periodic visits to residential compounds as part of citywide testing ...

An all-consuming question

Why a ‘Big Data’ cashier-less store has been a Covid victim too
May 20, 2022 (WiC 585)

Amazon unveiled the first cashier-less convenience store in Seattle in 2018. The US tech giant later rolled out the “Just Walk Out” technology to Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh-branded stores. More recently, it added two Whole Foods stores, a ...

How has snack giant Bestore coped with Covid?
May 6, 2022 (WiC 583)

Snack sales were buoyant in the US during the pandemic as consumers worried less about their waistlines and munched away at home to counter stress and boredom. PepsiCo’s snack unit Frito-Lay has been setting the pace, for instance, with ...

Doing the dishes

Are dishwashers catching on in Chinese households
Apr 8, 2022 (WiC 580)

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the first dishwashing machine was invented by a woman, although it wasn’t because she was fed up with doing the dishes. Josephine Cochrane, a wealthy socialite from Illinois, came up with the ...

Second time Luckin

After overtaking Starbucks, Luckin now plans New York comeback
Apr 8, 2022 (WiC 580)

In the five years since Luckin Coffee was founded, its chequered experience is worthy of more than one business school case study. It started out helping to convert a population of tea drinkers into coffee addicts. That seemingly huge success ...

When the shoe fits

Hillhouse’s Belle looks to make IPO return as Anta plays to patriotic buyers
Apr 1, 2022 (WiC 579)

There was a time that passengers couldn’t walk through a major airport without passing a Tie Rack. At its peak the British retailer had 450 branches in 31 countries. When it went public in London in 1987, it floated on a price-earnings ratio ...

Just don’t do it

Li Ning faces US sanctions on North Korea allegations
Mar 25, 2022 (WiC 578)

A year ago almost to the day – amid a public backlash in China against foreign companies that had spoken out against using cotton from Xinjiang in their products – domestic sportswear giant Li Ning proudly declared that it would continue to ...

Cup noodle giants floored by pickle scandal
Mar 25, 2022 (WiC 578)

Huarong, a small county in Hunan province, has been growing leaf mustard for well over a century. The fields yielded so much of the greens over time, locals began pickling them, blanching the greens before adding plenty of salt, sugar, ...

Breaking with tradition

After its first ad in 20 years Laoganma is now raising prices
Mar 18, 2022 (WiC 577)

There’s a saying that there is a bottle of Laoganma in every household in China. So many people grew up on the hot sauce that in 2014 when the son of founder Tao Bihua decided to replace Guizhou peppers with cheaper ingredients from Henan, it ...

Consumer spending is alive and well in Shanghai
Mar 18, 2022 (WiC 577)

The word ‘omakase’ in Japanese means “I’ll leave it up to you”. Around the 1990s, as Japan became increasingly wealthy, a lot of the newly affluent, flush with cash, started turning up at high-end sushi restaurants but were not sure ...

1 2 3 4 5... 52