China’s luxury consumers get their information online

As the buying power of China's masses continues to spiral upwards, more and more information is being gathered focusing not only on what they like to spend their money on but how they go about spending it.

This week it has been the turn of the international audit and advisory services firm KPMG ( http://www.kpmg.com/cn/en) to release its report into the spending habits of mainland Chinese - and it found that 70 percent of the country's consumers of luxury brands search the internet each month before making their purchases. What's more, 30 percent claimed they searched online for information on luxury items each week.

But, surprisingly, just five percent of those polled said they were actually interested in making a purchase over the internet. Worries over authenticity, payment security and after-sales service were cited as reasons for the low number interested in purchasing online.

China's buying power has become big news and, obviously, big businesses over the past decade with a recent report from WHO CLSA claiming that "Greater China" (which includes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) will by 2020 account for 44 percent of all luxury good solds in the world each year.

China is currently the world's second largest market for luxury goods, behind the United States and in front of Japan, and accounts for 11.5 billion euros in sales per year.

And it seems that more and more, Chinese consumers know exactly what it is they want to buy. KPMG's poll found that respondents were able to recognize immediately almost twice the number of luxury brands than when they last held their survey three years ago.

French, Italian and Hong Kong brands were the top choices among Chinese consumers - with France's fashion and cosmetic lines, Italy's footwear and Hong Kong's jewelry being most sought-after.

The three top reasons those polled gave for purchasing luxury items were to reward themselves, to mark an important occasion and to "pamper'' themselves.

KPMG surveyed 1,200 middle-class Chinese from the country's first and second-tier cities for their poll.

MS