Shanghai boosts innovation, restructuring(3)

Figures released by the local municipal government show that consumption of daily commodities (300 billion yuan) and food (180 billion yuan) are the areas with the highest annual volume of retail sales.

"The retail industry has prepared for the restructuring of the city by providing more innovative, higher quality products and offering a more pleasant atmosphere for shopping and services to customers from Shanghai and even further away, such as the Yangtze River Delta," said Wang Liuhe, secretary-general of the Shanghai Merchandise Commercial Profession Trade Association.

Statistics from the association show that the merchandising industry increased by 11.2 percent in Shanghai in the first three quarters, of 2011, and the association wants to see an average annual increase of 10 percent in the next five years.

"Bringing the world's best-known brands to the city has become the common goal of big shopping malls, because consumers want to buy more international brands as their incomes rise," said Wang.

At present, 80 percent of the world's top brands have been introduced to Shanghai as companies opened branches and stores in shopping malls.

"Most of the big merchandising outfits that own shopping malls in the city have made it their aim to provide a greater number of high-end products from overseas and attract customers by offering better services," said Wang.

Along with these companies, around 50 percent of the city's small and medium-sized shops are now selling private brands at reasonable prices.

"As a private seller of clothes and accessories that are not branded, my shop enables people from the middle- and lower-classes to buy what they want at lower prices than at the shopping malls," said Shen Wei, the owner of the Xiao Wei (Little Wei) clothes shop in Shanghai which sells women's clothes manufactured in Guangdong province alongside garments imported from South Korea.

Shen added that the market malls and unbranded goods in shops like hers is quite balanced and essential to meet the demands from people in the city.

In addition, putting greater focus on the trading and logistics industries, especially in private SMEs, has been set as the next procedure in the restructuring of the city.