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Chinese consumers are coping with surging inflation, the highest the country has faced in a decade, sometimes resorting to stratagems available only within China?s peculiar social environment.

Shoppers are banding together at wholesale meat trading centers in Shanghai to take advantage of a 20% price discount relative to retail prices. Group shopping by retail buyers has also been reported taking place in wholesale vegetable markets.

In the western city of Chongqing, similar ?collective bargaining? is taking place in furniture marts as local consumers try to counter a retail price hike of about 15% in three months. Some citizens in Guangzhou, in southern China, said they are abandoning grocery shopping at many of the country?s newly introduced indoor supermarkets, preferring instead to visit outdoor makeshift markets, where prices are generally lower.

News reports have circulated about how cost-conscious housewives in low-income families Read more