Shopping habits of China’s ‘suddenly wealthy’

In the past decade China has become the workshop for the world, its low-cost labour force toiling in factories to churn out cheap goods destined for western consumers. Many of the raw materials needed to feed this industrial juggernaut have to be imported from other countries and today China is the biggest driver of markets in commodities such as copper, oil and iron ore.

But as well as a multitude of low-paid factory workers, the country’s manufacturing boom has also ­created a large and growing number of baofahu – literally, the “suddenly wealthy”. Their shopping habits and changing tastes are reshaping global trade flows at the other end of the production chain.

The rise of the Chinese consumer has ­provided unprecedented opportunities for enterprising global corporations and many now look to the country as their biggest growth market for the indefinite future. And while China’s nouveaux riches share many of the tastes of their counterparts in any other part of the world, there are also a number of customs and cultural legacies that have ­created new markets for ­products that have little value elsewhere. This has encouraged global companies to invest an increasing amount of time and money in understanding what makes the Chinese customer special and how best to market or customise products.

In some cases, traditional Chinese tastes, combined with the explosion in wealth during the past decade, have created a rapacious and unsustainable call for the body parts of endangered species. The manufacture of ­traditional delicacies, ornaments and medicinal ingredients has helped to cut swathes through populations of sharks, elephants, seahorses and other species across the world – and that demand is only expected to increase.

Jamil Anderlini, FT deputy Beijing bureau chief