In case you’ve been wondering which products are in high demand in China, or what 18.67% of the total world population loves spending their money on, here are 10 best selling consumer products in China!
As you are probably very much aware, China is one huge country. Not only is it in the third place in the world based on its size (right after the US and Canada, which share the 2nd place. Russia is the first), but it has the population of stunning 1,411,981,487! That’s almost a billion and a half! Production and market-wise that means China is an enormous market and a force to be dealt with. In the western-oriented world, we sometimes tend to forget one of the basic qualities of huge countries: in some cases, they prefer to keep to themselves. On this subject, that would mean buying domestic products that the rest of the world has hardly heard of. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s analyze the market first.
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In order to better get to know the average Chinese consumer and his/her habits, we read a lengthy China Shopper Report 2017 by Bain&Company. This information provided us with an insight into Chinese economy and the best selling products in China in 2017. It appears that the most demanded products in China come from the sectors of — packaged food, beverages, personal care and home care. These areas represent 80% of China’s FMCG ( fast-moving consumer goods) purchases. Personal care products have shown the largest increase in sales compared to the previous year (10.5%), which is a striking number compared to the minimal increase in home care products (3.5%), food (0.5%), or beverages (0.2%). Also, there is a rising trend with anything healthy or hygiene related, and personal products also fit into this category, so we focused on them in this article.
As for the money matters, or the price of a product, Chinese consumers are very specific, to say the least. The latest trend in personal care products purchase is to go for the more pricey option and show a kind of prestige. However, one of the reasons why national products are doing better than the foreign goods lies in the fact that Chinese manufacturers know best how to offer discounts and tempting deals to their loyal customers. That is one of the skills foreign companies have yet to master. Either way, the best things to export to China would probably be chewing gum, fabric softener, instant noodles, and beer. Some of the American products that Chinese love are quite expected, such as women apparel, but you certainly didn’t expect baby and maternity products, did you? That was the consequence of a couple of safety scandals with Chinese milk and infant formula. The Chinese always want the best brand at the best price on the one hand, but on the other, they are willing to pay for high-end merchandise in order to gain prestige. Consequently, this is one challenging market to master. Nevertheless, the safest products to manufacture would be those from the personal care category, so let’s go back to that.
HKTDC Research confirmed what we have already suspected: cosmetics and makeup sales have been growing rapidly in the last couple of years, thus becoming the best selling products in China 2016. The overall retail sales of skincare products were RMB 169.1 billion ( over 25 billion dollars), and make-up products turnover was RMB 28.3 billion ( $4 billion). Green/natural products are held in high esteem, and sunscreen products are also bought all year long, irrespective of the season.
Now that we have established which kinds of products are absolute best sellers in China, the last thing to do was to find some good examples of them. As we have already explained, Chinese consumers like their goods both affordable and pricey, healthy/green, and they prefer domestic to foreign brands (as stated in the report). We found them at Refinery 29, and in order to find similar examples, we read some China Daily articles to learn about the most popular national brands in cosmetics and skin care. Finally, we chose some representatives form the most popular categories explained above, and completed our list. Admittedly, the products listed are given in random order, but they do reflect the most popular products made in China, i.e., best selling products in this country.
If you’re wondering what their neighbors are putting in their shopping baskets, read our 10 Best Selling Consumer Products in Bangladesh. In the meantime, let’s finally see which are 10 best selling consumer products in China!
