Wangfujing Street, Beijing

On Wangfujing Street, you can find shopping malls and shops all along the street. So you can find anything you look for on this street and around. However, don't expect low prices you can find in Silk Market.

What to buy: Various

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We did most of our shopping in Wangfujing Street while in Beijing. Although we didnt do a lot of shopping as we only had 20kg baggage limits on our internal flights. It was quite difficult to restrain ourselves, as everything we saw, we wanted to buy! Lucky we didnt though, because even though the shopping was cheap here, it was even cheaper in the 3 other cities we visited.

Some Department stores here were quite expensive, (like In Time Lotte) but one we found was good was Oriental Plaza. It had a huge variety of shops, plus had great food hall on the 5th and 6th floors.

We also bought little souvenirs at all of the main attractions we visited, like postcards and playing cards.

The vast majority of shops in China (and certainly all the market areas) allow for bargaining and indeed they welcome it and unless you seriously want to get ripped off, it is a necessity. As for how hard you bargain, that is entirely up to you. Their first price will be a huge rip-off, and most of the time, we managed to get the price down to about a quarter or even a fifth of their starting price. Id say our average would be about 1/4 or 1/3 of their price. Ultimately, whatever you are prepared to pay for an item, then makes it a "good price". After a while, you quickly realise the insanity of it all when you are arguing over 5 or 10c! It is much better in their wallet than in yours!

This large bookstore has a history of nearly 50 years, and it is the preference of many foreigners in Beijing. The bookstore has a great number of books written in English covering literature, history, politics, travel, art and even cooking. Most of them are published by Chinese publishing houses, while there are also some original imported books from foreign countries.

Wangfujing Dajie is the most well-known and prosperous business street with modern and fashion trends. Wangfujing Dajie starts at East Chang'an Avenue in the south and ends at the China Art Gallery in the north. This 700-year-old commercial street is 810 meters (0.5 miles) long and 40 meters (43.7 yards) wide. It is the busiest street in Beijing and there are 600,000 people every day come and go in the street and on holidays, the number can rise to 1,200,000. The first famous business zone in Beijing houses a wide variety of shops and boutiques where you find commodities, some of which are of world-famous brands. Apart from that, there are also many time honoured stores with traditional commodities standing in the street for hundreds of years. The street is home to western fast food chains such as Starbucks, McDonalds and KFC plus a branch of the Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant and the Beijing Friendship Store and Beijing Foreign Languages Bookstore.

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This street has everything. All the top brands, middle of the road, food, tourist shops, yes it' all here.

Its a busy street, pedestrian in the most important part, and great fun.

Bring your plastic.

What to buy: All the top labels are here, as well as others

What to pay: As much or as little as you want

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most prestigious department store in beijing, it is comparable to Bloomingdales. Unlike shanghai, beijing has less luxury department stores and this is the most popular, situated in the hip wang fu jing street, it carries many foreign brands such as Calvin Klein, Nina Ricce, Gucci, Prada, Lanvin etc. The first floor is home to cosmetic brands such as Christian Dior, Elizabeth Arden and Guerlain and boutiques like Mondi, Yves Saint Laurent, Nina Ricci, D'urban and Charles Jourdan. The second floor houses the ladies department, lingerie, accessories and leather bags plus a coffee shop. The third floor has the men's department, and on the fourth floor are children's clothes, toys (plenty of foreign brands) and household items.

Opens 10am-10pm everyday.

What to buy: whatever foreign brand you like is available and slightly cheaper than in other countries.

What to pay: maxx out your credit card

4 more images

most prestigious department store in beijing, it is comparable to Bloomingdales. Unlike shanghai, beijing has less luxury department stores and this is the most popular, situated in the hip wang fu jing street, it carries many foreign brands such as Calvin Klein, Nina Ricce, Gucci, Prada, Lanvin etc. The first floor is home to cosmetic brands such as Christian Dior, Elizabeth Arden and Guerlain and boutiques like Mondi, Yves Saint Laurent, Nina Ricci, D'urban and Charles Jourdan. The second floor houses the ladies department, lingerie, accessories and leather bags plus a coffee shop. The third floor has the men's department, and on the fourth floor are children's clothes, toys (plenty of foreign brands) and household items.

Opens 10am-10pm everyday.

What to buy: whatever foreign brand you like is available and slightly cheaper than in other countries.

What to pay: maxx out your credit card

The stores of Wangfujing Street close at 9PM, but a small night market stays open after that which caters to tourists. The night market consists of vendor stalls that stretch along a few blocks of side streets and alleys that branch off from Wangfujing Street near the southern end of its pedestrian mall section.

What to buy: Most of the stalls sell either souvenirs or food. The souvenirs are the same things that you see in shops all over the city, and you will have to bargain to get down to the right price. We shopped for postcards and Christmas ornaments there. The food on offer in the food stalls ranges from ordinary (ice cream) to unusual (scorpion-on-a-stick and seahorse-on-a-stick are a couple of the stranger ones that we saw).

What to pay: For souvenirs, try to buy them for about 1/3 of the asking price. You will have to bargain for a few rounds and walk away once or twice to get to the right price.