Similarities and Differences in Pedestrian Shopping Behavior in Emerging Chinese Metropolises

Abstract

To give a general impression on the fast development of Chinese retailing, this paper reports a study on pedestrian shopping behavior in two city centers, East Nanjing Road and Wang Fujing Street in Shanghai and Beijing. Similarities and differences in pedestrian profiles, activities and movement patterns are generalized from a comparison of statistics from the two groups. Although their social-physical backgrounds are similar, the results indicate similarities in pedestrian profiles and movement patterns but differences in activities, and reflect some fundamental differences in the retail content and development stage of the two streets in during the modernization process.

JEL classification: D12, R10