The Chinese Luxury Client: Current Profile and New Attitudes

Abstract

Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and the opening up of China to foreign investment allowed foreign international brands to enter the Chinese market and begin to explore and understand its specificities, as well as its transformations. If, in the beginning, foreign brands were mainly located in the eastern coastal areas where their potential customers were, since the start of the 2000s, due to rapid urbanization, the growing economy, and the resulting increased purchasing power of Chinese customers, foreign brands and, in particular luxury brands, have started developing their presence across China’s western regions, gradually increasing Chinese customers’ brand awareness. Analysing luxury goods consumption modes in the Chinese market, these have been reported as more of a social phenomenon than a personal one in relation to the sociocultural specificities of China: such as the social rules and regulations, the hierarchical approach to organizational structures, and the social meaning of acquired wealth as a form of power and strength.