Mecca of Malls

No trip to Shanghai could be complete without a comment on the inordinate amount of shopping that is present here. The city thrives on an entrepreneurial spirit, and everyone here seems to be selling something. There appears to be little in the way of consolidation at this point- the competition is still too fierce. Testament to that would be the 40+ mega-malls now located throughout the city (and I’ve personally counted at least 4 others in development.) There are four competing ones situated within 1km of each other on Nanjing Road! And they are all huge! I’m not convinced yet that people actually buy anything from them, as most of the brands inside seem to be Prada, Gucci, Cartier, Fendi, Armani, and other expensive sounding names I can’t even pronounce.

As an aside, we did see a very packed series of booths at the bottom floor of one of the malls last weekend- it was one of the first companies that is beginning to offer mainstream personal credit cards in the mainland– let the race towards consumer debt begin!