Entering China in 2026: what the playbook still gets wrong

Most entry plans still open with distribution and treat brand as the thing that follows once volume justifies it. That order made sense when the constraint was shelf. The constraint now is credibility inside a small number of platforms where an unknown foreign brand is indistinguishable from a shell, and no amount of distribution fixes that.

Three assumptions worth retiring

First, that a category leader elsewhere arrives with equity here. It does not, and the years spent building it elsewhere are invisible. Second, that a local partner supplies the credibility. A partner supplies access; credibility is still yours to earn and yours to lose. Third, that the entry is reversible. Leaving is a story that follows the brand back into the region.

What a realistic first year looks like

Narrower than the plan usually is. One category, one platform, one clear reason to be believed, held for long enough that the second year has something to build on. The plans that fail are rarely underfunded. They are spread across enough surfaces that no single one accumulates anything.

— Brandigo, Shanghai