Are you scared of the Made in China label? So am I. So are most Chinese. One of the top concerns Chinese consumers have is product safety, according to the findings from 5,000 interviews in 15 cities that my firm, the China Market Research Group, recently conducted. Chinese fear safety problems that wouldn't cross Americans' minds when shopping--clothing doused in toxic dye, condoms lubricated with vegetable oil, watermelons injected with dirty water to make them heavier.

Quality control is a serious problem in China. You've heard the horror stories about Chinese exports--rotten drywall in Florida homes, lead in Mattel children's toys. Over the last several years, China's reputation as the factory for the world has taken a hit. It has gotten so bad that the Chinese government recently launched a global marketing campaign on CNN touting how the Made in China label benefits the world.

The situation is slowly improving, though. Not only has the outcry in America and Europe pushed the Chinese government to clamp down (and to execute the worst offenders), but Chinese consumers are demanding change, too. They're shopping at retailers like Wal-Mart where they expect better quality control than at mom-and-pop stores. They're buying brands like DuPont ( DD - news - people ) and American Dairy whose marketing programs emphasize their safe production processes. Most of the people we surveyed told us they were willing to spend 20% more for ingestible products they believed were safe. Even before the melamine dairy scandal, my wife, who is from Beijing, had me fly abroad to Korea or the U.S. every three months to buy baby food for my son.

Contrary to a recent report by the consulting firm McKinsey, our research suggests that Chinese don't trust local brands over foreign ones but in fact distrust them at a record level. Multinational corporations can help find a way around that distrust by providing more premium products--with fat margins. When it comes to safety, Chinese consumers are not price sensitive.

With China poised to overtake Japan to become the world's second-largest economy in 2010, brand managers absolutely must understand what Chinese consumers want. Here are two more trends for 2010, in addition to the willingness to pay more for safety, that you should think about whenever you think about selling to the Chinese consumer:

The second trend is that consumers are greatly increasing their use of computers and mobile phones to shop. Through the first nine months of 2009, China's 380 million netizens spent $25 billion online, twice as much as a year before. What is causing those soaring sales?

Problems making payment safe and dependable have largely disappeared as the number of credit cards in use has increased from 13.5 million in 2005 to 180 million today, and as Alibaba's Alipay system has come into widespread use. Godaddy started accepting Alipay a few weeks ago for international transactions. Also, the delivery of consumer products has been ironed out, as private couriers have established national distribution networks to supplement the state-run postal system. Most important, e-commerce has gone mainstream. Before, it was the province mostly of younger Chinese looking for bargains, as I wrote in "In China, Online Shopping Soars." Recently consumers in third- and fourth-tier cities with incomes buoyed by China's stimulus program have started buying online to get things they can't find in stores near their homes.

In many areas, opening stores can be costly and far too bureaucratic. The owners of malls and other properties can be crooked or, more often, simply inept. As a result, many companies should think about opening online stores tailored specifically for Chinese consumers. That way they can reach the regions of the country where consumers are the most optimistic without increasing their fixed costs (see my "Tap Into China's Swelling Consumer Base").

A company that is getting it right is L'Oreal, with its Lancome line. By pushing its online sales, Lancome is selling to Chinese women in almost three times as many cities as it has retail outlets in. In its relaunch of Hydra Zen moisturizer cream, the company got more than 1 million consumers to register online and 6 million to vote online. Lancome dominates the luxury cosmetics field, and along with brands like Apple ( AAPL - news - people ) and Louis Vuitton it has top brand loyalty among Chinese consumers.

The third trend is that consumers are increasingly being influenced by digital and social media marketing. Brand managers should rethink their marketing budgets with an eye toward allocating more to social media sites like Tencent.

In China, most multinationals only spend 2% to 3% of their marketing budgets on digital initiatives; 8% to 12% is typical in the U.S. This makes no sense, for Chinese spend relatively more time online than with other media like TV or print, compared with American consumers. Logically, brand managers should spend much more online.

Why don't they already? Part of the blame lies with their advisers. Most advertising agencies have limited digital marketing capabilities and relegate their online campaigns to junior people. They also prefer to work with television and sporting events, where there is more money and more personal visibility for them. Moreover, media buyers in China prefer to spend your money where it benefits preexisting relationships of theirs, or where they can get preferential treatment such as rebates.

Brand managers need to push their media buyers to embrace digital marketing more strongly. They also need to work with marketing agencies that have strong in-house digital capabilities.

Chinese consumers are buying more, but they are also getting more sophisticated and building higher expectations. Companies need to keep up with both their problems and their needs. Multinationals need to build on consumer trust in their international brands, and they need to look for ways to expand their sales through the right channels and connect with consumers through the right marketing plans. This will often mean creating an e-commerce platform and emphasizing social media and digital marketing as primary rather than secondary ways of connecting with customers.

Consumer spending in China is increasing, but, just as important, it is also evolving. Every company selling products there needs to evolve, too.