Chinese netizens are big Internet users. According to a Boston Consulting report in early 2012, China’s 513 million Internet users were online for 2.7 hours every day – more than any other country except Japan’s 2.9 hours.

This week Alibaba Group, who own China's leading eCommerce platforms Taobao, TMall and Alibaba, announced that it's online retail sales will hit 1 Trillion RMB ($158 billion USD) this year. That's big, much bigger than eBay's $60 billion last year, and further evidence that Chinese consumers love to shop online.

Every week China is abound with interesting going-ons, but what caught my eye this week was the activity around the new pair of ‘Pants’ towering over the city of Sozhou in Jiangsu Province. Weibo users have been making thousands of comments about Sozhou’s newest skyscraper, Gate of the Orient, a tower resembling a pair of trousers almost as tall as New York’s Chrysler Building.

Social Media is running hot in China right now. A recent study by McKinsey revealed that 91% of all Internet users in China, have used Social Media in the past 6 months – that's 467 million Chinese consumers. So just who are these consumers and what are they using?

The past week has seen a flurry of statistics circulated about food safety in China, which has a silver lining for anyone exporting food and beverage to China. The most eye-opening statistic is that 61% of Chinese consumers are less confident about local food and beverage than they were last year (more below).

The past week has seen a flurry of statistics circulated about food safety in China, which has a silver lining for anyone exporting food and beverage to China. The most eye-opening statistic is that 61% of Chinese consumers are less confident about local food and beverage than they were last year (more below).

The China Internet Network Information Center published a report last month outlining how Chinese consumers search on Sina Weibo

Another week and a big week for the folks at Sina Weibo. Figures released this week announced that as at June 30, there were 368 million registered Weibo users, showing healthy growth in spite of well publiched censorship-blips on the service. Chinese users realize this is a necessary evil of using Weibo and it seems to have had little impact on the Weibo's increasing influence for China consumers.

Sina Weibo’s latest registered user count stands at 368 million on 30 June 2012, according to Sina’s quarterly financial report. The user numbers are well up on the last count of 324 million users at 22 May 2012, indicating that Chinese netizens seem relatively unfazed by the negative commentary about censorship, a 3-day period of blocked comments in April and some limited services thereafter.

Another week and another stellar Olympic games has wrapped up. The Games brought Chinese tourists in droves to London, spending more than any other visitors. Back home, Chinese fans went crazy on Weibo, posting 119 million microblogs for the opening ceremony alone; notably more than Twitter’s 10 million tweets.

As more and more businesses jump on the Weibo horse, the Chinese Weibo community are on the wagon following them. A study published by Sina Weibo found that 56% of users follow at least one business account on Weibo, following four businesses on average. Like social media in many parts of the world, some of those so-called 'followers' rarely use social media or are bots, with just 35% regularly accessing their Weibo accounts (‘regularly' is not defined in the research).

Another week and another round of beautiful news, advice and opinions to deepen your knowledge of selling to Chinese consumers. In this week's line up you can indulge yourself in understanding Chinese consumers, Chinese retail, the Internet in China, mobile phones, luxury goods and food and beverage in China.

If using China’s Weibo makes you hungry, you are not alone. Restaurants in China have been finding great success promoting their swine and noodles on Weibo and are now the most common business-type to have an enterprise account on Sina Weibo.

China is one of the few major markets to be really growing right now. With 120 million affluent consumers in China right now, expected to rise to 280 million by 2020, that’s a lot of shoppers with discretionary income who could buy your product.

Here are this week's highlights of articles that should give you a deeper insight into the dynamic art of selling your wares to Chinese consumers. This week you can feast your eyes on information about understanding Chinese consumers, branding in China, the Internet in China, outbound Chinese tourists, car tastes, luxury goods and film in China.

Although Weibo’s filters catch most inappropriate conversations from Government slander to inappropriate philandering, a search for “性爱” xìng ài effectively meaning the sexual act, displays 7.2 million recent posts

Below is the weekly roundup of recent articles that should help you better understand the constantly changing dynamics of China's marketplace. This week you'll get insights into understanding Chinese consumers, branding in China, the Internet in China, Chinese tourists, and the regular favorite, food and beverages in China.

It seems the dominance of men in China’s boardrooms is also reflected on China’s most important communication channel, Sina Weibo. Weibo’s runaway popularity and influence has seen the leading voices on Weibo also become some of the leading voices in China.