search
Back

Conversation with Professor Chen Xinlei CKGSB and Professor Rando Kim of Seoul National University: Chinese Consumers, Who are They?

November 02, 2013

An interview with CKGSB Professor Chen Xinlei, in the JoongAng Ilbo   China is rising as the biggest consumption market in the world, yet maintaining mixed and complicated consumption patterns. CKGSB Professor Chen Xinlei showed his academic excellence in marketing by sharing his valuable views with Professor Rando Kim of Seoul National University and the author of a million-seller book, ‘Trend China’, on Chinese market and consumers.

An interview with CKGSB Professor Chen Xinlei, in the JoongAng Ilbo

China is rising as the biggest consumption market in the world, yet maintaining mixed and complicated consumption patterns. CKGSB Professor Chen Xinlei showed his academic excellence in marketing by sharing his valuable views with Professor Rando Kim of Seoul National University and the author of a million-seller book, ‘Trend China’, on Chinese market and consumers.

Professor Chen claimed that Chinese market has unique characteristics that cannot be easily explained by the traditional economic theories. Professor Kim argued that Chinese customers often tend to be contradictory in terms of their consumption habits, where they sometimes tend to be groupists and pragmatists, as well as nationalist and individualist. Professor Kim commented that urbanization will help mature consumption culture and lead to better consumer finance, welfare system and consumer supports.

To effectively target complicated yet delicate Chinese consumers, Professor Chen warned the firms who disregard their customers and pursues the short-term profitability only. Both professors agreed that corporations should enhance entrepreneurship and customer loyalty which will improve their brand value in a long term. Professor Chen claimed that Chinese consumers will become much more rational as their value on consumption comes to reach maturity and the government is likely to intervene in order to resolve the information asymmetry between firms and consumers. He further commented that Korean firms can be a good business model for Chinese firms in terms of quality management and retaining core technologies.

Please read the full interview in Korean on the JoongAng Ilbo

Understand China from the inside

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter today!

Understand China from the Inside

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter today!