As shoppers, what factors influence our decision to purchase an object or service? Why do we chose one product over another? How do we attribute value as part of the shopping experience?
The theme of 'serving' the customer and customer satisfaction is central to every formulation of the marketing concept, yet few books attenpt to define and analyse exactly what it is that consumers want. In this provocative collection of essays, Morris Holbrook brings together a team of the top US and European scholars to discuss an issue of great importance to the study of marketing and consumer behaviour.
This ground-breaking, interdisciplinary book provides an innovative framework for the study of consumer value which is used to critically examine the nature and type of value that consumers derive from the consumption experience - effiency, excellence, status, esteem, play, aesthetics, ethics, spirituality.
Guaranteed to provoke debate and controversy, this is a courageous, individualistic and idiosyncratic book which should appeal to students of marketing, consumer behaviour, cultural studies and consumption studies.

How do customers decide what products and brands to buy? With the rise of sophisticated advertising and marketing research methods in this century, business leaders have spent billions of dollars attempting to answer this perplexing question. Occasionally, analysts emerge with suggestive trends, but ultimately with little hard evidence to support any definitive "laws" of customer choice.

Now, in this much-anticipated major work, Eric Marder reveals how universal patterns in survey responses lead not only to general principles in marketing but to empirically verifiable laws of human nature itself. Drawing on forty years of applying his pioneering experimental design techniques to marketing research surveys, Marder presents a global theory of choice behavior, supported by original data reported here for the first time from thousands of massive real-life experiments based on millions of interviews. His dramatic findings about pricing, optimal marketing tactics, product evaluation, the relative role of product and image, and advertising effectiveness will make this book required reading for the entire marketing community. Of special interest to social scientists and survey research practitioners will be Marder's powerful research designs and techniques, including the unbounded write-in scale for measuring desirability (attitude) and his methodological analyses of the relationships among beliefs (perceptions), desires, choice, and behavior.

In the Preface, he writes: "At the core of the theory are three laws of choice behavior the Law of Congruence, the Law of Primacy, and the Law of Persistence. These laws are both general and self-evident. At first glance, they are so self-evident that you might say: 'I have known this all along.' My reply is: 'Of course you have known it all along. But there is a difference between knowing and knowing, between the passive knowing that allows us to persist in actions that are inconsistent with what we know, and the active knowing that helps us change the way we do things.' I believe that knowing the laws of choice behavior-really knowing them -- changes the way we do things. My crass but stringent criterion has been that a good theory should enable someone equipped with it to make more money than someone who isn't. I believe my theory has passed this test."

In recent years the study of consumption has become one of the most important areas of knowledge in the social sciences. In business studies and marketing, the nature of consumer research has undergone a profound change. Postmodern perspectives which challenge and undermine previously held notions of consumer identity, belief and decision-making have radically altered our understanding of consumer practice and marketing theory. This volume is a collection of essays by exponents of postmodern consumer research from Europe and America. Topics covered include: chronicle, composition and fabulation in consumer research; postmodern approaches to pluralism in consumer research; marketing in cyberspace; poststructuralism in marketing; and semiotics in marketing and consumer research.

In recent years the study of consumption has become one of the most important areas of knowledge in the social sciences. In business studies and marketing, the nature of consumer research has undergone a profound change. Postmodern perspectives which challenge and undermine previously held notions of consumer identity, belief and decision-making have radically altered our understanding of consumer practice and marketing theory.
Consumer Research: Postcards from the Edge is a collection of cutting-edge essays by leading exponents of postmodern consumer research from Europe and America. Topics covered include:
* chronicle, composition and fabulation in consumer research
* postmodern approaches to pluralism in consumer research
* marketing in cyberspace
* poststructuralism in marketing
* semiotics in marketing and consumer research.
Original and ground-breaking, Consumer Research: Postcards from the Edge is an invaluable resource for all those interested in new directions in business and marketing.

How Your Business Can Use the Science That Helped Win the White House The average conversion rate the rate at which visitors convert into customers across the web is only 2%. That means it's likely that 98% of visitors to your website won't end up converting into customers. What's the solution? A/B testing. A/B testing is the simple idea of showing several different versions of a web page to live traffic, and then measuring the effect each version has on visitors. Using A/B testing, companies can improve the effectiveness of their marketing and user experience and, in doing so, can sometimes double or triple their conversion rates. Testing has been fundamental in driving the success of Google, Amazon, Netflix, and other top tech companies. Even Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had dedicated teams A/B testing their campaign websites during the 2012 Presidential race. In the past, marketing teams were unable to unleash the power of A/B testing because it required costly engineering and IT resources. Today, a new generation of technology that enables marketers to run A/B tests without depending on engineers is emerging and quickly becoming one of the most powerful tools for making data-driven decisions. Authors Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen are cofounders of Optimizely, the leading A/B testing platform used by more than 5,000 organizations across the world. A/B Testing: The Most Powerful Way to Turn Clicks Into Customers offers best practices and lessons learned from more than 300,000 experiments run by Optimizely customers. You'll learn: * What to test * How to choose the testing solution that's right for your organization * How to assemble an A/B testing dream team * How to create personalized experiences for every visitor * And much more Marketers and web professionals will become obsolete if they don't embrace a data-driven approach to decision making. This book shows you how, no matter your technical expertise.

Social Marketing: marketing in the service of societal problems. Does this approach represent dangerous social engineering, or is it the best hope we have to treat what are often regarded as intransigent problems? For both academics and practitioners involved with social marketing, the domain remains in its infancy. Programs and approaches are being developed and implemented by practitioners; academics are defining "what it is," "where it comes from," and "where it is going."
This book incorporates many of the presentations made at the "Role of Advertising in Social Marketing" Conference sponsored by the Society for Consumer Psychology. Professionals from academia, government, and non-government organizations address a highly diverse and interesting set of societal concerns ranging from organ donation to violence in sports, from efforts to promote safe sex and family planning to better understand cigarette smokers and their perceptions. Are marketing's "four Ps"--product, price, place, and promotion--enough to help solve these problems, or does social marketing at the end of the 1990s need to call on other Ps, such as political persuasion? This volume thoughtfully addresses theoretical and empirical issues challenging academics and practitioners alike to find out how to borrow the best of marketing for application in social marketing.

"Studying Audiences; The Shock of the Real" provides a critical overview of two decades of research into the television audience. With the development of ethnographic research methods, hailed by Stuart Hall as "a new and exciting phase" in audience research, researchers turned their critical attention to groups of "ordinary people" watching television, combining interviews and participant observations with textual analysis of television programs.
In a comprehensive analysis of the origins and achievements of the "cultural studies audience experiment," Virginia Nightingale evaluates five projects which helped to shape the field of television audience research, including Charlotte Brunsdon and David Morely's work on "Nationwide," Ien Ang's "Watching Dallas" and David Buckingham's study of "Eastenders" and its audience. Nightingale traces how central tenets within audience studies were challenged by discourses of post-colonialism, fan activism and new theories of writing, arguing that audience research is necessarily a complex activity.

Studying the Audience: The Shock of the Real provides a critical overview of two decades of research into the television audience. With the development of ethnographic research methods, hailed by Stuart Hall as `a new and exciting phase' in audience research, researchers turned their critical attention to groups of `ordinary people' watching television, combining interviews and participant observations with textual analysis of television programmes.
In a comprehensive analysis of the orgins and achievements of the `cultural studies audience experiment', Virginia Nightingale evaluates five projects which helped to shape the field of television audience research, including Charlotte Brunsdon and David Morley's work on Nationwide, Ien Ang's Watching Dallas and David Buckingham's study of Eastenders and its audience.
Nightingale traces how central tenets within audience studies were challenged by discourses of post-colonialism, fan activism and new theories of writing, arguing that audience research is necessarily a complex activity.

Will your questionnaire work as well as it needs to by today's standards? Use this new edition of the bestselling guide to make sure it does. Good data is central to information-based decision making. Increasing access to online survey software is allowing more organizations to benefit from contact with their customers, employees and the public. However, the challenges facing the questionnaire writer remain and the greater volume of surveys and demands on potential respondents' time is making the task even harder. Your questionnaire needs to work better than ever to keep their attention. Questionnaire Design provides comprehensive and practical guidelines to plan, structure and compose questionnaires across all industries and purposes, ensuring valuable data insights are captured with accuracy and efficiency. You can't write a good questionnaire unless you know exactly what you are trying to achieve. This updated fifth edition recognizes this fundamental challenge, with advice for gaining the clarity needed to plan and focus your questionnaire. It continues to provide guidance for those using interviewer administered surveys, but now reflects the primacy of online and the challenges that brings. With pressure on everyone's time, this revised edition makes it even easier to navigate to the key points with new bullet-pointed takeaways at the end of each chapter.

Semiotics is a superpower for marketers. It generates profits for brands. It's a proven, powerful method of uncovering consumer insight and tailoring brand strategies that work. Companies such as Unilever and P&G attest to the success of Lawes semiotics in stimulating innovation and boosting sales. This book makes semiotics accessible. You can do semiotics. All agency-side and client-side marketers can pick up the skills to use and apply semiotics to brands. Using Semiotics in Marketing is an acclaimed how-to guide. It's the only book on semiotics ever published that sets out a complete blueprint for research projects. Clear instructions show how to write briefs and proposals, design projects, conduct analysis, write reports and present research findings. Newly updated, this second edition is packed with even more revelations about brands, consumers and their emerging needs. Three new chapters reveal the unseen social forces that drive the Be Kind movement, public appetite for sincerity and the emotions of younger generations. Start using semiotics today. Position and launch new brands. Rejuvenate established brands. Design products and packaging. Inspire timely and provocative ad campaigns. Innovate. See the future.

We know how eager you are to learn practical workplace skills at university so that you are "job ready" following graduation. In marketing, one of the most practical things you can learn how to do is create a sound marketing plan. This new book guides you concisely through the marketing planning process from start to finish, drawing on examples from large brands like Ikea and Krispy Kreme to digital start-ups like Starling Bank. Features a running case study about a small services business that breaks the marketing plan down into easy to digestible chunks. A dedicated chapter on marketing strategy concepts to help you understand how they link to market, firm or decision-related factors. Self-test questions and scenarios with tasks throughout make for an active learning experience. Practical in its step-by-step approach and inclusion of activities and scenarios and written simply whilst still underpinned by marketing strategy scholarship, this book will help you to develop your marketing decision-making throughout by learning key skills such as how to do a SWOT analysis and how to budget and forecast correctly. Supported by online resources for lecturers including PowerPoint slides, an instructor's manual and a suggested syllabus. Suitable reading for marketing planning and marketing strategy courses.

Market Research in Action is an examination of various marketing research techniques using a running case study based on a real product. The use of this device shows how research impacts on product development and the product launch, with particular reference to fast moving consumer goods. To demonstrate other marketing research techniques the author has added additional cases introducing a selection of techniques to show how these techniques are developed or used in different arenas, for instance while dealing with service products or marketing in a retail, international and B2B marketing environment.

In recent years, luxury goods markets have faced significant changes that have influenced both the dynamics of the competition, as well as their strategies. The principal changes include the following: new geographical market development, such as in the Far East, India, and some parts of Africa (these countries are added to a list of already relevant countries that are involved in luxury goods consumption, such as the Emirates, Russia, and South America); diffusion of new media and new technologies in communication, which is characterized by a high degree of interaction; the evolution of distribution channels is underway - these channels are moving towards new forms of integration that utilize both physical digital channels. This has forced firms to revise their strategies and implement multichannel marketing strategies to continue to operate in increasingly international markets that are characterized by increasingly more demanding and informed consumers. This book will enable readers to gain a clear insight into how the luxury goods market operates and amongst other things, focuses on: recent internet and social media strategies adopted by luxury companies and their brands; how luxury companies manage their communication and distribution channels to compete in the market and the impact of digital marketing on their competition; the main models of direct and indirect distribution in the digital channels; how consumers react to multichannel strategies; trends, social commerce and CSR and how luxury companies react; identifying the different social media strategies for luxury companies.

The Principles of Islamic Marketing fills a gap in international business literature covering the aspects and values of Islamic business thought. It provides a framework and practical perspectives for understanding and implementing the Islamic marketing code of conduct. It is not a religious book. The Islamic Economic System is a business model adopted by nearly one fifth of the world's population. Baker Alserhan identifies the features of the Islamic structure of International Marketing practices and ethics. Adherence to such ethical practices elevates the standards of behaviour of traders and consumers alike and creates a value-loaded framework for firms, establishing harmony and meaningful cooperation between international marketers and their Muslim target markets. His book provides a complete guide to the requirements an organization needs to follow when managing its entire marketing function within the Muslim market or when adapting part of its offering to that market. It addresses the challenges facing marketers involved in business activities with and within Islamic communities, the knowledge needs of academic institutions, and the interest of multinationals keen on tapping the huge Islamic markets. Along the way, Baker Alserhan provides insights into the various aspects of promoting to the Islamic markets such as franchising, distribution channels, and retailing practices, branding, positioning, and pricing issues; all within the Muslim legal and cultural norms. Above all, The Principles of Islamic Marketing will lay the foundation of, and advance, Islamic Marketing as a new social science.

In some parts of the world, especially in developing markets, category management today remains a stretch goal - a new idea full of untapped potential. In other areas, the original eight-step process that emerged in the late 1980's forms the foundation of many companies' approach to category management. In still others, particularly in developed countries like the U.S., the U.K., and others, refinements are being made - most of them designed to place consumer understanding front and center.

New ideas are emerging - from "trip management" to "aisle management" to "customer management." Whether a new descriptor emerges to replace "category management" is yet to be seen. Even if that does happen, what won't change is the overall objective - to help retailers and their manufacturer partners succeed by offering the right selection of products that are marketed and merchandised based on a complete understanding of the consumers they are committed to serving.

This book, which explores both the state of and the state-of-the-art in category management, is for everyone with a vested interest in category management. It can serve such a broad audience because category management is about bringing a structured process to how executives "think" and "make decisions" about their businesses, no matter what information and information technology they have access to.

Context and Cognition in Consumer Psychology is concerned with the psychological explanation of consumer choice. It pays particular attention to the roles of perception and emotion in accounting for consumers' actions and their interaction with the desires and beliefs in terms of which consumer choice is frequently analyzed. In this engaging book, Gordon Foxall extends and elaborates his theory of consumer action, based on the philosophical strategy of Intentional Behaviorism. In doing so, he introduces the concept of contingency-representation to explore the ways in which consumers mentally represent the consequences of past decisions and the likely outcomes of present consumption. The emphasis is on action rather than behavior and the manner in which the intentional consumer-situation, as the immediate precursor of consumer choice, can be reconstructed in order to explain consumer actions in the absence of the environmental stimuli required by behaviorist psychology. The result is a novel reaffirmation of the role of cognition in the determination of consumer choice. Besides the concept of contingency-representation which the author introduces, the analysis draws upon psychoanalytic concepts, theories of cognitive structure and processing, and the philosophy of perception to generate a stimulating synthesis for consumer research. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in consumer behavior and economic psychology and to all who seek a deeper interdisciplinary understanding of the contextual and cognitive interactions that guide choice in the market place.

This book demonstrates that marketing scholarship has much to contribute to our understanding of consumer vulnerability and potential solutions. It brings to the fore ways in which so-called vulnerable consumers navigate various marketplace and service interactions and develop specific consumer skills in order to empower themselves in such exchanges. It does so by exploring how consumer vulnerability is experienced across a range of different contexts such as poverty and disability, and the potential impact of vulnerability from childhood to old age. Other chapters extend focus from the consumer to the organisational perspective or consider more macro issues such as socio-spatial disadvantages. The fundamental aim of many of the contributors is to produce work that can benefit individual and societal well-being. They draw on various methodological approaches that generate both marketing management and policy-focused implications. A series of commentaries are also included to stimulate critical reflection and new insights into consumer vulnerability. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Marketing Management.

The key to marketing is understanding and satisfying consumer needs, thus a knowledge of consumer behavior is essential to any organization dealing with customers, users, or clients. This book promises to be a contemporary classic. It brings together an international set of scholars, many of whom are "household names", to examine the diverse approaches to consumer behavior topics. The editors employ a micro to macro structure, dividing each topic into three parts: one reflecting foundational work, one focused on emerging trends, and one covering practical applications. Each part examines the relationship between consumer behaviour and motivation, including well-being, gender, social class, and more, and concludes with practitioner perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that come with understanding customers. Readers will gain insight into how drives that are constantly in flux relate to other aspects of human cognition and behavior, allowing them to reach customers successfully, and to meet their needs. With contributions from leading scholars, including Sidney Levy and Jagdish Sheth, this volume sets the standard as the most comprehensive, cutting-edge resource on the subject of consumer behavior. Students of consumer behaviour and marketing will find this a useful exploration of a fast-moving field, fundamental to the welfare of companies, government, non-profits, and consumers. It will also benefit new and established academic researchers as well as practitioners who want to stay on top of current knowledge.

The Chinese electricity sector is the largest in the world, covering well over 20% of the world's electricity supply. While many other countries liberalized their electricity systems in the 1990s, thereby creating competitive wholesale and retail electricity markets, China's move towards liberalization has advanced at a slower pace - until now. Following the China State Council's publication of the No. 9 document on 'Deepening Reform of the Power Sector', this book reflects on the ambitious new round of reforms aimed at introducing competitive wholesale electricity markets and incentive regulation for its power grids. Written in collaboration with Hao Chen, Lewis Dale and Chung-Han Yang, this book provides lessons for China's reforms from international experience, combining a detailed review of reforms from around the world with specific application to China and focuses on how the industrial price of electricity is determined in a liberalized power system.

As innovation moves from the lab to the market, a new research phase begins for the entrepreneur: the market research phase. Inspired by a new technology that can change the world, critical questions need to be addressed. Is there a market for my innovation? Who are my clients? What do they need? Is my innovation filling that gap in the market? Who are my competitors? How are they approaching the market? If these questions are unaswered, entrepreneurs meet potential investors or partners with only a basic understanding of their market. The objective of this book is to fill this gap. It is a practical manual that gives entrepreneurs real-world advice and tools to build a solid market model. The book provides tips, models and tools entrepreneurs can use to collect, interpret and present their market and integrate it into their business plan. What the entrepreneur learns in this book will help him throughout his journey. After going over the market research process, he will learn how to design and use a number of market research tools, and how to adapt them in a life science context. From building a web survey to preparing interviews to doing your own secondary research, this handbook will help him gain a comprehensive understanding of how to perform his own market research activities and how to analyze his data. Finally, a number of frameworks (such as the TAM-SAM-SOM as well as the KANO Model) are described so that he can efficiently share what he has learned, using models that simply yet effectively shares findings.

Every marketer knows the stories of Lord Lever and Steve Jobs, has probably read Al Ries and Jack Trout, and seen the works of Bill Bernbach and John Hegarty. What's interesting about these 'Masters of Marketing' is that they are all men. In Katy Mousinho's and Giles Lury's Wonder Women are the stories of some of the women who have had a tremendous influence on the marketing industry, like Brownie Wise, who transformed Tupperware and Mary Wells Lawrence, who founded the advertising agency Wells, Rich, Greene. There are interviews with the co-founder of Dunnhumby, the data behind the Tesco Clubcard - Edwina Dunn OBE, Senior Vice President, Arla Foods Denmark, previously the only female country CEO in Carlsberg - Helle Muller Petersen and many more. Mousinho and Lury pull together the findings, not only to celebrate their success, but to provide insights for the future of marketing and the great marketers, women and men, to come.

Maybe you've thought, "Even if I could work 24 hours a day every day for months, I'd never catch up," or "If I could only clone myself--it would be so much better. No one else can do what I do." You find yourself missing deadlines, or worse, unable to respond to new customers, and opportunities are slipping through your fingers. If only sleep were optional! From the outside, everything seems to be going well, but you feel like you're struggling as a leader and need more help. Sleep is NOT optional and just working more hours won't take your company to the next level. Tandem Leadership illustrates these problems and how to solve them through the fictional character of Marcus Kinsey, a newly minted entrepreneur of a fast-growing company. Like many entrepreneurs, Marcus sees an opportunity and creates his own company to seize upon that opportunity. But he doesn't get far before he realizes that his vision and hard work alone won't make his company a success nor give him the life he wants as an owner. Marcus learns about the Tandem Leadership pro-cess and begins to carefully craft the business and personal life he had always hoped to achieve. The "second-in-command" or #2 position, often underrated, is a cornerstone of a company's growth and success. Understanding how to add this key element to your company successfully increases the odds of making the transition from a solopreneur to a true CEO. CEOs: If you are the bottleneck at your company, Tandem Leadership is for you!

Many of the environmental and social problems we face today are symptoms of a deeper systemic failing: a dominant cultural paradigm that encourages living in ways that are often directly counter to the realities of a finite planet. This paradigm, typically referred to as 'consumerism,' has already spread to cultures around the world and has led to consumption levels that are vastly unsustainable. If this pattern spreads further there will be little possibility of solving climate change or other environmental problems that are poised to dramatically disrupt human civilization. It will take a sustained, long-term effort to redirect the traditions, social movements and institutions that shape consumer cultures towards becoming cultures of sustainability. These institutions include schools, the media, businesses and governments. Bringing about a cultural shift that makes living sustainably as 'natural' as a consumer lifestyle is today will not only address urgent crises like climate change, it could also tackle other symptoms like extreme income inequity, obesity and social isolation that are not typically seen as environmental problems. State of the World 2010 paints a picture of what this sustainability culture could look like, and how we can - and already are - making the shift.

Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century explores recent and anticipated changes and trends--legislative, economic, organizational, clinical, and operational--from a strategic marketing perspective. Author Alan K. Vitberg, a respected consultant in health care marketing, takes an unabashedly strong, direct, and aggressive perspective on these trends, maintaining that a state of war exists in the health care industry--a war that will only increase in fervor and intensity as organizations fight for survival and their share of hundreds of billions of dollars spent in America on health care.According to Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century, those payers and providers who understand that they're fighting a war and act accordingly stand the best chance of short term survival and long term prosperity. Those who bury their heads in the sand, awaiting the storm of war to blow over, will find themselves prisoners of their inactivity.Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century succinctly captures and explores issues and trends affecting participants in the battle for consumers'health care dollars, including: the growth of managed care; emerging health care systems; formation of provider networks and other organizational structures; the relationship between risk and product, target market, and organizational options; the emerging clout of primary care; mergers and acquisitions; and shifts in health care dollar flow.Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century is also one of the first books in the market examining changes being made to Medicare and Medicaid programs and their strategic and tactical implications for health care industry participants.In order to take advantage of these changes and trends, Vitberg moves from the conceptual to the practical by defining and delivering insights into the concept of competitive innovation and its relationship to competitive advantage--hearing, listening, and responding to the voice of the market through meaning brand identification, product differentiation, and intrusive marketing communications that motivate customers to a preferential purchase decision.Anyone in the health care industry--marketing, planning, and development professionals with hospitals, HMOs, PPOs, networks/alliances, insurance companies, and medical groups--is among those who will find Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century a valuable resource for embracing strategic marketing now and in the near future. The book also serves as informative, stimulating reading for professors and students in graduate level health care administration courses.

Understand the Asian consumer's demands and effective marketing strategies! The emergence of China as a viable consumer market has created tremendous opportunities for international or multinational firms looking for market entry or expansion in China. At the same time, the evolution of the Chinese economy and the increasing heterogeneity of Chinese consumers also pose a great deal of challenges for global marketers trying to assess and evaluate the Chinese market. Consumer Behavior in Asia: Issues and Marketing Practice will help marketers and market researchers understand Asia's consumer market by providing you with a consumer segmentation of China's 1.25 billion population as it explores Asia's cultural values, consumer perceptions, and attitudes. From this book, you will discover everything from perceptions and preferences toward advertising and different consumer goods to the emergence and growth of different upper class sectors. Consumer Behavior in Asia provides you with demographics, psychographics, and life-styles of Asian consumers to assist you in successfully entering the Asian market. Academics and business executives will be able to examine the emergence of the Asian markets and focus on the similarities and differences of Asian consumers with Western counterparts. Consumer Behavior in Asia will enable you to accurately assess market demands and enact effective marketing strategies. With this essential book you will explore several studies that reveal information on Asian consumers, including: marketing strategies for firms to adjust and thrive as fast food providers in Asia market segmentation considerations for rural and urban areas a complete outline of China's population segments, buying preferences, and spending power consumer decisions based on the country-of-brand and brand of product Asian generation X-ers'perceptions toward advertising influences of cultural forces on consumer behavior, such as the importance of gift giving Consumer Behavior in Asia provides you with a complete overview of China's economy and highlights the attractiveness of the growing market. The plethora of business opportunities in China is epitomized by the encouraging words one would say to an ambitious merchant--"Go west, young man--to the East!"