Cash was king, not so long ago in China. But as wealth and the middle class increased, mobile payments had an advantage, says business analyst Ben Cavender. Because other payment tools like cards did not have a solid footprint, eager smartphone users adopted mobile payments quickly, he tells That’s Magazine. But: “Realistically, I don’t think cash will go away entirely, but it will certainly be relegated to a less important role.”Read More →

China’s millennials are increasingly defining the country’s consumer space, and Western fashion brands fail to appeal to them, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, to the South China Morning Post. Brands like Mark&Spencer failed because they focused on the middle-class, he saysRead More →

Foreign companies would watch in fear media campaigns at China’s consumers day in the past. But this Thursday, consumer day will be a backdrop for upcoming months of tensions, now a trade war is looming, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order to Bloomberg.Read More →

China is leading the way in digitalizing the consumer experience in retail, but both major competitors – Alibaba and Tencent – have different retail strategies, says WeChat expert Matthew Brennan to the News Lens. Alibaba focuses on the offline experience, Tencent’s WeChat will stay online. In 2018 the battle will be on mobile payment, he adds.Read More →

China has become a politicized society, and countries and businesses can only ignore politics at their own peril. That is one of the key messages of political analyst Shaun Rein’s book The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, and at the China Economic Review, he explains how that – in his view – works.Read More →

E-commerce giant Alibaba launched this week a special app for the older people at Taobao, its online shopping website. A logical step, says retail analyst Ben Cavender to Reuters. “It’s easier now than it was in the past to get some of these older users to actually open up their wallets and spend.”Read More →

No tool has changed life in China more than the smartphone, with 640 million users and counting in less than a decade. But a new device is possibly disrupting – and improving – life even more, writes Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub in the China Law Insight: the self-driving car. He paints the upcoming changes, and the way China’s government is promoting that change.Read More →

Chinese brands like Huawei and Xiaomi have not only legal problems to enter the lucrative US market, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order. It would also help if potential buyers would be able to pronounce the name of the product they are expected to purchase, he tells the South China Morning Post.Read More →