Sociocultural Factors In China

Sociocultural
Sociocultural factors play a significant role in the macro-environment. They affect people’s attitudes, beliefs, behaviours, preferences, customs and lifestyles. Starbucks operated business in different countries causes different results are the typical example to show how the sociocultural factors would influence marketing mix. Starbucks, which was started in America, quickly became one of the most famous brands of coffee chain worldwide. However, Starbucks was stuck in Australia and it closed 61 shops and cut 700 jobs. According to a journal article (BusinessThink 2010), Starbucks was doomed to fail because they just exactly copied what worked in America to Australia.
In terms of product, Australians already have their coffee

Meanwhile, KFC introduces about 50 new products a year and some of them are offered temporarily. Therefore, Chinese consumers could taste both Chinese-style food and Western fast food in KFC and could frequently experiment with new products. On the price front，KFC gains maximum material sources in China to keep costs low and makes the price is acceptable to customers. Additionally, KFC makes a considerable investment in promotional activities, such as advertising and training their employees in customer service. Those activities could build awareness of, interest in and stimulate customers to purchase products from KFC. In terms of place, KFC is expanding speedily into small and midsize cities in China and it already opens KFC restaurants in 700 Chinese cities. In other respects, KFC Company is developing a vast logistics and perfect supply chain in China. Therefore, KFC could ensure the products are available all the time and customers are easy to purchase the products from

For solving environmental contamination and energy crisis, a large number of companies changed themselves to be the environmentally friendly companies. For example, according to a journal article (Plambeck & Denend 2008) Wal-Mart launched a green supply chain, and this strategy influences the marketing mix.
On the product side, Wal-Mart committed to work with suppliers who are certified by the nonprofit organization such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Organic Trade Association. Therefore, Wal-Mart would know where are the offerings come from and offer the higher quality of products to customers. The higher quality of products would attract customers and potential customers to purchase it in order to satisfy functional, social and psychological needs, and demands. In respect of price, Greater transparency in the supply chain allows Wal-Mart to simplify the chain of management, reduce paperwork and decrease transportation costs. Hence, Wal-Mart not only could drive down costs to benefit, but also offer products with a lower price. Customers may decide to purchase products in Wal-Mart for the lower and the reasonable price. With respect to promotion, Plambeck and Denend (2008) suggested “actively pursuing an environmental agenda would help Wal-Mart differentiate itself from its competition.” Meanwhile, Wal-Mart successfully makes