More than 60 percent of customers on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall are Shanghainese, a recent survey showed, overthrowing the old thought that most guests on the road are from other cities, Oriental Morning Post reported today.

The survey, conducted by the Shanghai Commercial Economic Research Center, is based on the information collected from eight main shopping areas in Shanghai for a year. It concluded that an average of 680,000 customers visited Nanjing Road E. every day, topping the other seven centers. Among these customers, 39.62 percent are from other cities and countries.

Shanghainese in the past believed that more than 70 percent of customers on Nanjing Road E., dubbed as the No. 1 shopping street in China, were from out-of-town.

Some people said Nanjing Road E. became more attractive to Shanghinese after it was reformed into a pedestrian road, which is cleaner and more organized.

Huaihai Road M. posts the second highest with 540,000 customers every day, followed by Xujiahui, Sichuan Road N. and Nanjing Road W.

Every day, 3.09 million customers visit the eight centers, which also include the Yu Garden area, new Shanghai shopping center in Pudong New Area, and the shopping center around Shanghai Railway Station.

The survey said 66.77 percent of the customers shop while strolling on Nanjing Road E. The percentage is the highest among the eight shopping centers, and 42.39 percent of customers on Huaihai Road M splurge on merchandise, ranking the second.

Nanjing Road E also attracts a lot of young people, with 30 percent of the customers aged from 20 to 29, accounting for the biggest part. While 20.75 percent of the customers in the Yu Garden area are from 30 to 39 years old.

(Shanghai Daily August 4, 2006)