This Day, That Year

Item from Oct 26, 1984, in China Daily: Crowds throng Nanjing Lu, Shanghai's busiest shopping street. The city's booming retail sales totaled 8.8 billion yuan in the first nine months of this year, up 14 percent on last year. Sales of goods such as washing machines and refrigerators rose as much as 160 percent. A Shanghai survey shows people had spent about 37 percent of their incomes on durable items this year, up from the 34 percent last year.

Like many other parts of the world, the Internet has made a major impact on consumption in China.

Many Chinese consumers, especially in large cities, use computers and smartphones to do their shopping. With just a few clicks of a mouse or finger taps on a smartphone, shoppers have products ranging from toothbrushes to television sets delivered to their doorsteps as quickly as a few hours after they make their online orders.