China's traditional consumption culture that thrift and sobriety being a feature is the reason at deep layer that the smallholding economy is redundant in our country.
The adjustment that follows may be wrenching. But the net effect is one that conforms to what consumers want, whether they admit it to themselves or not.
Services are useful only insofar as they are consumed, and so the best way of specifying their usefulness is to describe what consumers expect of them.
Now, the penetration and impact of social media is such that failing to understand what consumers are saying about a company online has become a business risk.
Apple's rebirth began in earnest with the introduction of the iPod music players, and Mr. Jobs began to gain a reputation for anticipating what consumers want.
Nothing says more about the American mind-set than what consumers are buying, and ignoring, at drugstores, supermarkets and mass-merchandising outlets like Wal-Mart and Target.