It’s been an interesting year at the Consumer and Shopper Insights website. We’ve posted several hundred items, drawing on research from every continent. We’ve also increased our registrations by almost 10 times and weekly readership is way up, too. Thanks for being with us on this journey.

Here are some of the most popular items from the last year, plus a few things that we just liked.


How to win in India’s rural markets
Rural Indians will account for nearly two-fifths of total consumption in 2025, and more than half in some important categories, such as food, beverages and tobacco. And that may understate matters: Many rural consumers travel to towns and cities to make purchases.

2011 Annual Chinese Consumer Survey: The new frontiers of growth
What makes Chinese consumers tick? What are they worrying about? How will burgeoning inflation shape their behavior? See the answers to these questions and more in McKinsey's 2011 in-depth survey.

The insight trap: why customer feedback can make products worse
Companies invest enormous money and effort to create new products and services. Too often, though, they have a serious flaw: Consumers don't want them (from McKinsey Operations extranet).

Fit for Europe 2020: Leveling the playing field for consumer-goods companies
Consumer-goods companies in Europe face a fast-changing business environment – and an anxious public. Here’s how to increase your chances to find profitable growth.

Caution ahead: What Americans think about the economy
Every six months since 2008, McKinsey has surveyed a sampling of Americans about how they are seeing the economy, and how their own spending habits are changing. This is the most recent survey, which showed significant differences from the survey in March.

Where’s Japan?
Drawing on the annual global iConsumer survey of more than 5,000 people, we did five articles on the global digital consumer. This one reveals some surprises about Japanese consumers and technology.

In Latin America, a little respect goes a long way
Retailers are aggressively pursuing Latin America’s growing middle class. To succeed, they need to show that they value their customers, not just their money.

Are your customers becoming digital junkies?
Consumer behavior is shifting rapidly as more people use digital devices and platforms intensively (from the McKinsey Quarterly).

Five questions for ... Christophe Lorvo
Christophe Lorvo, general manager of the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, answers questions about the global hotel business—and how to keep going after an earthquake.

The human factor: How global tribes are changing the marketplace
Spurred by the spread of the Internet, mobile technology and social networks, global digital tribes are forming. Marketers who ignore the phenomenon will lose out. 

Tablets and the 24-hour digital day
Tablets are wildly popular. But how do people actually use them? And what does the rise of the tablet mean for other industries?

Korea’s luxury market: Demanding consumers, but room to grow
Our luxury reports are always popular. We also did one on Japan and another on China. This one addresses three key questions about Korea: Can the country keep it up? What’s changing? And what do these trends mean for the players in the luxury industry?

Profiting from the next $20 trillion: Lessons for global companies
The global middle class is up for grabs—and the multinationals that can shift their organizational focus to scale up speedily will have the advantage

Managing for the consumer: An interview with Howard Schultz of Starbucks
The company once grew fast. Now CEO Howard Schultz wants it to grow with discipline—in emerging and developed markets alike (from the McKinsey Quarterly).

5 things to understand about the green(ish) consumer
British consumers are inundated with information about how to go green and save energy. But what do they really think?

Out of Africa: A generation of consumers on the rise
With several years of sustained, broad-based growth behind it, Africa is becoming an important market. Here are the most important trends shaping the African consumer sector.