Jake’s Take: Quality Trumps Cheap in China’s Brand Battle

Peking University and Alibaba just released the China Online Consumer Brand Index—a fascinating report which illustrates that Chinese consumers are increasingly favouring branded goods.

One of the buzzwords that dominated the China retail space in the post-pandemic period was “consumption downgrading”—consumers allegedly swapping to cheaper, white label goods. It’s a narrative that WPIC Marketing + Technologies consistently pushed back against.

This latest report demonstrates that instead of chasing the lowest price, shoppers are increasingly prioritizing “consumption quality”, as measured by the Consumer Brand Index (CBI)—a metric Alibaba uses to quantify the brand equity and quality of goods consumers purchase. The CBI measures the quality dimension of consumption—factors like brand strength, customer satisfaction, and premium pricing.

The findings are striking. In China, the CBI has trended upward for five consecutive quarters, indicating a sustained rise in Chinese consumers’ preference for higher-quality, branded products. This steady uptick—coming in spite of economic headwinds—shows that a huge swath of consumers are actually switching from off-brand products to brands.