Chinese Consumers and Foreign Brands

Global Times made an online survey on the Chinese consumers’ opinion about famous foreign brands.

Part One: background and goal of the survey

Foreign brands, which are known for their high quality and service, are being involved in scandals on a regular basis. Toyota’s fame is greatly damaged because of its vehicles stuck gas pedal; Carrefour and Wal-Mart are criticized for their “price frauds”; Hewlett Packard became notorious for the sale of second-hand laptops.

What influence do these scandals have on consuming behavior of the Chinese consumers? Did their attitude change towards foreign brands? What do they consider the best foreign bands? … Global Times made an online survey to find answers to these questions.

Pa유rt Two: the Survey

One: Method

Global Times sent questionnaires to the Internet users in different places in China. Having received the survey, people may choose whether they want to answer the questions or not.

Two: Contents

The survey consists of questions on the respondents’ attitude towards foreign brands. It includes questions on Chinese peoples’ most favorite and least favorite foreign brand and the changes of their attitude towards foreign brands in one year.

Three: Time

The survey lasted from March 5-11, 2011.

Four: Respondents

All the respondents are Internet users who visit the website of Global Times regularly or have a subscription to Global Times.

By 13:00 on March 11, 1411 questionnaires were submitted. The detailed information about respondents are listed as follows:

Part Three: Results

One: Half of the respondents’ opinion on foreign brands worsened after scandals

According to the survey, 53.4% of the respondents did not have a positive attitude towards foreign brands as they used to have. Only 3% of respondents thought better of foreign brands. 39.3% of respondents hold the same attitude towards foreign brands as before. The remaining 3% answered with “I don’t know”. The details are provided in the following graph:

Two: 42.5% of the respondents said that they bought fewer foreign products than in 2010; 18.6% said that they increased their expenditures on foreign products; 32.5% said that their consumption of foreign products remained the same comparing to the last year. 3.6% chose “I don’t know”. The details are shown on the graph below:

Three: Whศen it was asked whether foreign brands live up to their names, 93.7% of the respondents gave a negative answer. 48.3% of people Üthought that a majority of foreign brands lived up to their names while 37.0% could not agree with that. 8.4% of the respondents thought that none of foreign brands could live up to their names. Only 2.8% stayed true to foreign brands. Finally, 3.5% of the respondents did not have an opinion. The graph below shows the details.

Four: Most respondents did not believe that all foreign brands acted according to international standards. 15.9% of them even th✯ought that none of foreign brands acted according to international standards. 48.3% thought that the amount of foreign brands that did not act according to international standards took a bigger proportion. 24.5% thought that a lesser amount of foreign brands rejected➳ international standards. Only 3.2% of the respondents believed that international standards remained a norm to foreign companies. 8.1% refused to make a guess by saying “I don’t know”. The graph below provides a better understanding.

Five: It is good to know that foreign brands leave a good impression on two thirds of the respondents. 19.3% of the respondents thought foreign brands were “very good and could stand for high quality and good service”. 37.8% of the respondents thought foreign brands are good but not enough to be perfect.

However, about 30.1% of the respondents gave foreign brands the “just so so” evaluation. About 6.4% of the respondents thought that foreign brands were “not good and needed improvement”. “Too bad” answered 4% of the respondents and 2.4% seemed to know nothing about this question. The following graph will provide a representation of these results.

Six: More than half of the respondents formed their opinion about foreign brands from news reports on TV, newspapers, magazines or Internet. 46.3% of the respondents were influenced by their own and their relatives’ experiences. 28.1% of the respondents were influenced by their friends. Surprisingly, only 22.6% got information from advertisements. The online reviews also are a big source because 14.4% of the respondents took them as advice. 2.8% of the respondents failed to answer where they received information on foreign brands. Below is the graph with the details.