“Chinese dopamine” charmed the western world. This is how we add to this and other applications

Allison Malmsten, director of public research at Daxue Consulting, a consulting company focused on China, notes that China has always been known as the world factory. We have bought Chinese products for a long time.

– The difference is that they have now discovered that they can not only sell products abroad, but also a brand – says Malmsten in an interview with Business Insider.

Global growth

Over the past few years, Chinese companies have dominated many industries – from gastronomy and fast fashion.

Here are some companies that export their model of operation to the West:

• The greatest competitor of Starbucks in China, Luckin Coffee, entered the USA in June, opening two new premises in New York.
• In March, the network of budget bubbles of bubble Mixue became the largest food company listed on the stock exchange after its stock market debut. Mixue has premises in Southeast Asia and Australia, and according to local media it plans to open the premises in Lower Manhattan.
• The USA Gigant Fast Fashion Shein considers the US to be its largest market. The company also recorded a huge increase in other Western countries, e.g. in Great Britain, where in 2024 it reached over 56 percent. profit increase compared to 2023.
• The budget Marketplace belonging to the PinduDuo Holdings retail giant was one of the most -downloaded applications among the American generation in 2024.
• The manufacturer of electric vehicles in April overtook the sale of Tesla Elon Musk in Europe.
• Pop Mart attracted huge queues after his Viral Labubu doll – from South Korea to Great Britain. The company recorded 401 percent Increase in profits in the first half of 2025.
• Fans of the Tiktoka, a social platform belonging to Bytedance, this year the jam fought in the USA against the sales or prohibition order in the USA.

Addicting people with a dopamine strategy

Chinese companies are much more often than their Western sufficiently rely on addictive, aggressive marketing.

E-commerce applications, such as Taobao, have overloaded interfaces with numerous pop-up windows. Continuous pop-ups and flashy ads with the latest discounts encourage customers to fall into a scrolling loop. And the more scrolling, the more expenses.

Malmsten from Daxue Consulting says that global players like Amazon focus on the platforms to be simple and intuitive. On the other hand, Chinese e-commerce platforms are focused on shopping. The expert claims that Chinese companies have found that the most addictive systems are those with random prizes.

“You don't know when the prize will appear – and that's when something is most addictive,” he says.

Jacob Cooke, the CEO of the Beijing Advisory Company WPIC Marketing + Technologies, points out that Chinese brands do not rely on repetitive promotions.

– Instead of simply lowering prices, they combine discounts with loyalty programs, live broadcasts, rapid events and shopping experiences like games that seem interactive – says.

Cooke adds that global players who use traditional, “static” price reductions are not able to match this level of commitment.

For example, Austin Li, a Chinese influencer known as “King of Lipstick”, gathered 35 million observers at Dou Yin, the Chinese version of Tiktok. It sells cosmetics and skin care products during live broadcast, filled with colorful pop-ups, banners and constant scrolling of products that it advertises.

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Always something new around the corner

These brands release new products at a record pace. Cooke says shein and this They test thousands of products, quickly identify hits and “direct them to the right consumers with extraordinary precision”.

In the case of cosmetic brands, such as Florasis and Flower Knovs, only three months pass from the idea to the introduction of a new line to the market.

The same applies to the automotive industry. Xiaomi, which began as a telephone manufacturer, announced in 2021 that in the next 10 years he would invest $ 10 billion. in the electric vehicle department. By the end of 2023, it has already released its first car.

Jeffrey Towson, the founder of the American-Chinese consulting company Techmoat Consulting, compares this with Apple's “Titan project”, the line of electric vehicles, whose beginnings reportedly reach 2015, but never saw the light of day.

– I don't think of many companies from the Silicon Valley that work at such a pace as Xiaomi – says Towson.

Now this high -frequency product model proves its effectiveness in Western markets.

– Western consumers react to this formula because they want the same diversity and immediate gratification that Chinese customers have enjoyed for years – says Cooke. – The model turns out to be possible to transfer on a global scale – he adds.

Cheap Blind Boxes make people want to take a chance

Some companies, like Pop Mart, work according to a different scheme. Pop Mart has about 570 stationary stores in 18 countries. It also has nearly 2,600 sales machines, which he calls “Roboshops”, and an extensive network of stores on e-commerce platforms.

The secret of Pop Marta are blind boxes – packaging that hide the toy inside. In every Pop Mart store you can see customers shaking boxes in the hope that thanks to this they will guess what will happen to them.

Jeffrey Towson from Techmoat Consulting said that in the best case Blind Boxes cause behaviors related to the search for the prize. In the worst – It's just gambling.

– When you open a blind box, there is a moment of excitement. You think: “which I got to? Oh, not the one I wanted. I will buy one more,” says Towson.

– So you have prize behavior that increases expectation and intensifies repetitive shopping – he adds.

Not only Pop Mart puts everything on this tactics. Aggressive advertising and random promotions ago and Taobao operate on similar terms, making customers dependent on dopamine jumps.

Allison Malmsten says that This tactic works exceptionally well for the generation of and younger customers, because the production of dopamine is the highest in youth.

– You get addicted to what was important at a given age. For millennials it was YouTube and Instagram, and for the gene with – all Chinese applications: Tiktok, Shein, ago – emphasizes. – – They enter adulthood at a time when the soft strength of China is at the highest level in history – he adds.

Cutting competition with price

Chinese companies, such as Luckin Coffee, Shein and this, have gained huge shares in the consumer market thanks to being cheap.

Jeffrey Towson says that Chinese companies operate according to the “50 % price, 80 % quality” system: their prices are half as much as the competition, and the quality is almost matching it.

Malmsten added that Chinese companies, unlike the Western ones, can develop faster because they are much more likely to grow over profits.

For example – in her opinion – Luckin Coffee discounts were unstable, but “they worked to make everyone try coffee in Luckin and download the application.”

China's domination encounters obstacles

Although they are cheap, addictive and fast, Chinese companies face exceptional challenges on international markets. One of them is regulatory barriers – especially when the administration of Donald Trump began to limit the so -called De minimis gap, which allowed small packages below $ 800. Go to the USA without taxes.

“In the case of Shein and this de minimis in the US, marketing in this country can seriously hinder them,” says Malmsten.

But Chinese companies that have already developed globally are opponents that you have to reckon with. Towson says they are the strongest players who previously conquered the domestic market. – Every company that operates internationally has probably already won at home, which means that this is the hardest gladiator in the arena – he explains.

And he adds: – This means that it is a gladiator in the arena surrounded by 50 dead bodies.

The above text is a translation with American Business Insider edition