Decathlon is a sports outlet which operates several branches in Shenzhen. I visited Decathlon next to Ikea in Nanshan district. They have lots of sports clothes and assecoires for sale; stuff that would be hard to find in other shops. Another advantage is they sell big sized clothes (I saw XXL).

As of May 2008 a new useful set of books about Shenzhen is available. I have not personally read the books (180Yuan is a bit too expensive for me), but the books do look very useful for anyone who wants to come shopping in Shenzhen or plans to stay here longer. The books are written by 50 expats living in Shenzhen and contain lots of useful information. There was another book about shopping in Shenzhen, but that book is already a couple of years old, so I think this is definately useful.

They have set up a website at http://www.szCityGuide.com. A short animation and the 2 first pages of each chapter can be seen at:

• [Shopping] http://www.szCityGuide.com/Shopping/index.html
  
• [Living] http://www.szCityGuide.com/Living/index.html

 

The book can be bought via their website as well at http://www.szCityGuide.com/buy.html

Ikea Shenzhen opened in April 2008 and has already generated quite a buzz in the city prior to opening. Ikea misses the crazy housing market from 2007, but I'm sure many Shenzhen people will be interested to see what this Swedish brand has to offer. Sunday the 20th of April we visited Ikea in Nanshan for the first time. Together with several thousands of Chinese, see the photos!  

When we went home around 16:00, there was a queue at the entrance to Ikea. I think they (wisely) decided that the store was too busy and only let people in slowly. See below for more photos!

Women's world is the name of a department store where they sell everything for women: clothes, shoes, cosmetics. There are a couple of brands, but mostly it's very affordable. They target the mid-range of the market: more expansive than Dong Men , but not as expensive as Citic City plaza or Mix City. My girlfriend often likes to go shopping here. Because because it is close to SEG and the other electronics markets it is a good combination for couples.

There are several big bookstores in Shenzhen, each with a variety of foreign language books. Books are much cheaper in China. Especially if you want to buy some Computer Science books, it is very worthwhile to look around. I bought many different computer books about UML, Design Patterns, Data Structures, Data Mining, C++ and so on. Where such books would easily cost 60 euro in the Netherlands, here they will cost 60 yuan, so about 1/10 of the price.

Besides computer books, there are generally also some classic novels in each store and various books to learn Chinese. In some stores you will even find some Japanese, Korean, French or German books.

Here are the addresses of the main bookstores in Shenzhen:

SEG electronics market (赛格电子市场) in Futian is the best place in Shenzhen to find every kind of hardware for your computer. It's a very high building and the first floors house hundreds of small computer stores. At the first floor you can buy small chips and other stuff, at the higher floors you will find USB-stuff, videocards, laptops, processors, memory and everything else you need to build a PC. You can bargain here, especially if there are no prices on display.

Around SEG there are many other shops. In fact there are two main shopping streets around SEG. On the street stretching to Shanghai hotel there are more electronics stores (selling Wii, PS3 and XBox360), but also big department stores with clothes, shoes, cosmetics, home appliances and so on.

Also on this street is the famous 'Foreign Trade Market' where you can buy cheap 'brand' clothes in big sizes. Look for some bargain XL shirts and shoes here! It is located a bit to the back of the main street, next to a KFC and Starbucks. There are also many restaurants in this area including Western restaurants like McDonalds, Pizzahut, KFC etc. Good place for shopping!

Dong Men (东门, East Gate) is a shopping area in the east of Shenzhen in Luohu district. It consists of several shopping streets with smaller shops and restaurants and two big shopping malls: Moi and Sun Plaza. Good area to find clothes, bed clothes and curtains. 

First about the main shopping streets of Dong Men : it always seems to be very busy, especially in the weekends. Good place to find bargains, either in the countless small streets or in the two big shopping malls. Generally the quality is a bit better inside the big malls, but it can also be fun to spend some hours looking at the countless small shops. In the two big department there are also stores that sell good quality bed sets. Ranging in price from a few hundred to several thousand yuan.