Shoppers in buy mode even as hope of discounts tarry

Ask any Chinese merchant and he would say it is better to buy when prices are on the rise than when they are sliding. That has also dictated Chinese consumers' spending pattern for generations.

And, for that reason, retailers are paying special attention to the decline in the consumer price index, or CPI, since the latter part of 2008.

Recent government data showed that CPI fell 1.5 percent year-on-year in April, and 0.2 percent from March. More worrisome to retailers was the fall in the producer price index, or PPI, which peaked at 10.1 percent last August and has been on a downhill ride since, as the deepening financial crisis triggered the collapse of commodity prices and slowed the nation's growth. The PPI registered negative growth last December and dropped by 6.6 percent from a year earlier this April.