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Consumer Culture
Luxury retailers know a gold mine when they see one. Just five years ago mainland buyers accounted for 1% of global sales of luxury handbags, shoes, jewelry, perfume, and the like. Today the Chinese are the third-biggest high-end buyers on Earth, with more than 12% of world sales, Goldman Sachs reckons. Within a decade, China will likely leapfrog Japan and the U.S. to become the top luxury market.
"China is experiencing huge wealth creation, and there is lots of conspicuous consumption related to that," says Goldman analyst Jacques-Franck Dossin. "People want to show they are successful." One way of doing that, of course, is with a pricey Cartier wristwatch from this Shanghai store.