How to do business in China: understanding the Chinese market

Résumé du document

China is now the second-largest consumer market in the world, which means an immense population of consumers whose debt is practically non-existent and that owns a lot of money to spend. Thus, it's a great place to start doing business, as the country is full of opportunities for starting a company.
In my opinion, doing business in China means having a good understanding of the country and its inhabitants. Indeed, knowing the people to whom you sell along with their customs will make you able to interact more easily with Chinese businessmen, and thus seal more contracts.
Then, what makes China special? What are the important things to know before meeting Chinese businessmen? That's what we're going to discover right now. In a first part, we'll see what makes China such a peculiar country, and in a second part what the cultural differences between the occidental world and China are.

Extraits

[...] Doing business the foreigner way in China would offend people and signing contracts would be impossible. C. Chinese people almost never say no Saying to a Chinese person might seem disrespectful, as locals usually say things more indirectly than in occidental countries. Indeed, as we've seen before, the concept of mianzi is very important in China, and telling to someone could be seen as making the other person lose face. Chinese partners wouldn't want to disrespect their occidental counterparts and their expertise, so that they will find another way to tell them they disagree with you, generally by proposing another idea. [...]

[...] There are a lot of rules to follow if one wants to keep face and thus give credit to their company or themselves. It includes a lot of formal greetings, polite requests always respect the country and the culture when speaking to someone, special gestures towards the interlocutor, invite them in luxuous places, and more importantly avoid to disagree with them when in public. This would make Chinese people feel embarrassed in front of other people, which is considered as losing face and would be very disrespectful. [...]

[...] China has indeed become the largest consuming country when it comes to luxury goods of the global market in 2010). But why do people like so much to buy such expensive products? This can be explained by the need to show off, also called 'face- consumption',费费 Chinese people buy luxury products to gratify their vanity, and those who cannot afford it find creative ways to look like they can. As an example, it's not rare for people to buy paper bags with brands name on it to pretend they just bought something very pricey. [...]

[...] Thus, any businessman should contemplate selling luxury goods in China, as there is a very high demand for them. II- Cultural differences A. Of the importance to consider the big cultural differences. If one wants to do business in China, they need to at least be a little bit aware of the major differences between the Chinese culture and the occidental one. This can have an important impact on their company's success in the country. For example, colours have special meanings for Chinese people: for instance, red symbolises good fortune. [...]

[...] Besides, the government is doing a lot to help these cities expanding and becoming economically stronger, for example by building better highways as well as faster trains to make access to these areas easier. There is a great demand for various things in the “second-tier cities”, which is good news for any businessman. Once again, China thus proves that it's one of the best countries for starting a company. B. A rapidly evolving country China is known for evolving at an incredibly quick pace. [...]