Challenges Faced By French Wine Traders On China's Wine Market

The Chinese market for wine is fascinating because it is full of contradictions: Firstly,it is a young market that was not really active until the 2000 s in both production and consumption,and yet today it has risen to the top 5 world importers,becoming the first market in consumption of red wines.For several decades,the consumers' choices have been influenced by the culture and received ideas,and have been late showing signs of wine-related knowledge and maturity in consumption,and yet the Chinese consumers have proven to be more and more knowledgeable about wine and are operating a shift in consumption.The wealth of foreign food imports makes China appear as a market where everything is possible,but this market is quite hard to reach for foreign importers,due to its particularities in consumption habits and distribution channel.Traders shouldn't also forget that in a market as huge as the Chinese market,a single change of policy can have huge repercussions on sales.Thanks to the quality and reputation of French wine,French wine traders have always managed to remain at the first place of China's wine imports,but what used to be something close to a monopoly has been showing signs of weaknesses for several years.This is due to several factors: a shift in tastes and consumption habits from Chinese consumers,an upcoming of fierce competition from both historical winemaking countries(designated as the Old World),and relatively recent ones(referred as the New World),a dominance of Chinese wine on its market,and crippling tariff barriers.French wine traders are also facing a problem of massive counterfeiting.The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the current situation of the Chinese wine market,its consumers,the competition and the relevant issues that are causing French wine imports in China to decline in market shares,and then offer some perspectives and suggestions to improve this situation,and make French wine imports keep flourishing.