As widespread economic gloom in China’s megacities sees high-end restaurants close their doors one after another, Starbucks is accelerating its expansion into the country’s far-flung counties, where a growing number of residents are embracing a petit-bourgeois lifestyle.
While county shopping centres might not stock Dyson vacuum cleaners and hairdryers, they have already become part of daily life in households in urban counties thanks to China’s ubiquitous e-commerce networks.
