Before Sam\u2019s Club \u2013 the American membership-only retailer with status appeal among China\u2019s urban middle class \u2013 opened in the lesser-known city of Jingshan in Hubei province, Zhang Liang decided to \u201cbring it there\u201d himself.<\/p>\n
The former truck driver invested about 600,000 yuan (US$88,969) in May to open a Sam\u2019s Club reseller shop, sourcing goods from authorised Sam\u2019s stores to sell locally. He was betting that consumers in Jingshan, despite its modest population of fewer than 600,000, would pay a premium for better-known brands and higher-quality products.<\/p>\n
While Jingshan is hardly among China\u2019s most prosperous areas, its appetite for Sam\u2019s Club-style retail is a sign of growing consumer enthusiasm<\/a> in many smaller, traditionally not-so-wealthy cities, in contrast to generally dampened sentiment nationwide.Zhang found that several resellers of Sam\u2019s Club goods<\/a> already operated in the industrial county, but he believed there was room for more in the market.China\u2019s smaller cities<\/a> increasingly have the means and eagerness to rival their first-tier counterparts in demand for premium goods and services, said Peng Peng, executive chairman of the Guangdong Society of Reform. The think tank is affiliated with the Guangdong provincial government, which has been studying regional economic development.Per capita consumer spending among urban residents of five counties in eastern China\u2019s Zhejiang province<\/a> \u2013 Leqing, Yuhuan, Yiwu, Wenling and Haiyan \u2013 surpassed that of Beijing and Shanghai in 2025, according to data from local authorities.Beijing\u2019s per capita consumer spending<\/a> was 50,667 yuan last year, while Shanghai\u2019s was 54,765 yuan, according to data from the cities\u2019 statistical bureaus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Sam\u2019s Club \u2013 the American membership-only retailer with status appeal among China\u2019s urban middle class \u2013 opened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[174],"tags":[1793,79,381,179,18,98536,8749,19,17,33629,83257,270687,1488,270686,141035,2792,10522,135960,270688,72197],"class_list":["post-639910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-beijing","tag-business","tag-china","tag-economy","tag-eire","tag-guangdong-society-of-reform","tag-hubei","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jiangsu","tag-jiangxi","tag-jingshan","tag-ministry-of-commerce","tag-mintel","tag-sams-club","tag-shanghai","tag-shenzhen","tag-yiwu","tag-zhang-liang","tag-zhejiang"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117104498893200640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}