Young Chinese are leaving China’s megacities for smaller cities, and bringing their sophisticated habits with them. Yet beyond the hype, how is this playing out for business opportunities?

Haidilao and Jiuyang are two hugely successful domestic brands in China’s competitive landscape, utilising mantras like “Go wherever people are going” and “Try whatever consumers are interested in.”

Reaching consumers in unfamiliar markets is more straightforward through ecommerce than navigating complex and fragmented brick & mortar landscapes. This year over 120 billion parcels were delivered in China, versus less than 90 million in India

Women power is nothing new in China. From Empress Cixi, ruler of the Qing Dynasty to Chairman Mao proclaiming that “women hold up half the sky,” females have long contributed to all aspects of life in the Middle Kingdom. In modern day China, their influence is ever-increasing. Supporting the growth of female power, Alibaba is currently hosting their inaugural Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship in Hangzhou. And rightly so, unlike many male-dominated tech companies globally, 40% of Alibaba’s employees are female.

WeChat, the main means of communication for most online Chinese, offers a viable way to reach consumers who regularly use this application. For many, WeChat is the start and end of their phone usage. In China, 90% of smartphone users now use WeChat, with heavy daily activity.

China Skinny wishes you a happy 2015; we hope you saw it in with a bang! The beginning of the year is often a time to plan ahead for the following 12-months. Whether you are already in China, or entering this year, here are a few points to keep in mind:

There’s no shortage of jaw-dropping numbers in China, however it’s the speed those numbers are changing that’s most fascinating. Since Adam first met Eve, the world has never seen changes on the scale that are currently happening in China.

In most countries when consumers think of milk, it’s likely they’d picture smiling kids with milk-moustaches. They may visualise families in chorus, skipping through emerald green pastures amongst big-eyed cows with bulging udders. Chinese consumer’s perceptions aren’t so rosy. Every time someone in China has a sip or a suck of the white juice sourced from Inner Mongolian paddocks, there’s a small part of them worried that they’ll be bed-bound by morning, or worse still, their precious child will be. Hence the premium consumers pay for foreign dairy products, and why foreign milk powder producers account for 60% of China’s market.

Shanghai, Beijing and China’s other first tier cities probably spring to mind when you’re thinking about opportunities in China. Their consumers have more western tastes, buy more western goods and are generally easier to reach than consumers in China’s ‘smaller’ cities. The megapolies also have better networks, infrastructure and facilities for western businesses. However, China’s smaller cities, most you’ve probably never heard of yet, often hold much more opportunity for western businesses with Chinese aspirations, here’s why:

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.

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).

Weibo has become the most trusted and one of the most popular sources for information in China, so it is no surprise that Chinese businesses are jumping over themselves to utilise the tool to reach out to customers. It’s allowing businesses in China to gather valuable customer feedback, communicate promotions and assist with damage control.

The growth stats for most things in China is phenomenal, but few compare to Sina Weibo. Launched less than 3 years ago in August 2009, Sina Weibo already has more users than the population of the USA – more than 324 million registered users in China as at May 16, 2012. And they’re the 324 million most educated, highest incomes and largest consumers in China – exactly the customers most western businesses are targeting. They account for more than half of China’s Internet population.