There is such a wide variety of shopping opportunities on this street that you may need to plan some additional time for window shopping. Truly, there are some upscale stores with name brands for clothes, purses, and jewelry. Many of the staff in these stores speak English very well.
If you are thinking of tying the knot, may I suggest getting your wedding dress from Nanjing Lu? The colors are wonderful, but to an American they may seem a little nontraditional. For those of us that are Americans, we need to remember that a Chinese bride will wear multiple dresses during her ceremony, so the selection and colors are more varied than in the states.
As I mentioned in my previous blog about Nanjing Lu, there is an automobile dealership on the street, which is amazing because people are not allowed to drive on this street. You may think that is a big issue to a prospective buyer, because they can’t do a test drive, but in China you don’t do test drives when purchasing a vehicle. The dealership’s reasoning is: if a car is wrecked, then it can’t be sold. When I was assisting a friend buying their first vehicle, I used that philosophy as leverage in negotiating a better price. My reasoning was that my friend was being asked to spend a large amount of money on a vehicle and nobody knew if it worked correctly or not. Our saleslady stopped to think about that for a while, and then she agreed with me.
If you don’t like crowds, you may want to avoid Nanjing Lu! The evenings seem to be a little more crowded. …and remember, it will be hot there in the summer!