This article is part of a McKinsey Quarterly package on the new Chinese consumer. To read the other articles, please select from the following choices:

Building brands in China
China's emerging consumers are rushing to buy name brands but show little loyalty to individual labels. A closer look at these shoppers' behavior suggests ways to counteract their fickleness.

Marketing to China's hinterland
China's smaller cities and towns conceal pockets of prosperity that shouldn't be dismissed lightly.

Understanding China's teen consumers
Teens in China influence the spending of hundreds of billions of renminbi annually, but don't expect them to mirror their counterparts in developed markets.

The value of China's emerging middle class
Faster than many companies expect, a massive middle class could dominate China's urban markets.

Shaping China's home-improvement market: An interview with B&Q's CEO for Asia
This British retailer finds that keeping up with the changing Chinese customer is the biggest challenge.