Shanghai's flagship store surge reflects shifting consumer trends, with brands showing distinctive preferences for site locations.
Flagship stores are useful tools for brand elevation and consumer engagement. Louis Vuitton's recent opening of 'The Louis' in Shanghai vividly showcase this strategy - a 1,600 sqm, three-storey experiential space shaped like a magnificent boat. Measuring 114.5 meters in length and 30 meters in height, the venue integrates retail, a café, and exhibition areas, setting a new benchmark for immersive luxury retail.
JLL Research tracked 72 newly opened flagships in Shanghai in 2024 and the first half of 2025, revealing clear shifts in consumer market trends:
Figure 1: Flagship store breakdown by category (2024 - 1H25, by store number)
Note: including 72 flagship stores
Source: JLL Research, July 2025
Sportswear brands lead in store count, accounting for 28% of openings, followed by Chinese domestic apparel (19%) and collectible toys (17%). This breakdown highlights Chinese consumers’ growing preferences for healthy lifestyles, emotional value, experience, and entertainment. Sportswear brands are riding the wellness wave by introducing flagship stores that double as experience hubs. HOKA’s 1,200-sqm three-floor flagship in Xintiandi exemplifies this trend - the brand’s first experience centre features a fitness testing facility. Collectible toy retailers similarly push experiential boundaries. Leading brands introduced stores like MINISO’s 2,000-sqm MINISO Land and TOPTOY’s 1,000-sqm global flagship on East Nanjing Road. Both stores feature theme-park-like interiors that create immersive, emotionally engaging environments.
Against this market backdrop, flagship stores serve four primary purposes: enhancing brand visibility through prime locations, demonstrating product innovation with full displays, conveying brand culture via immersive spatial storytelling, and fostering consumer engagement through multi-functional event spaces.
To achieve these goals, brands refine their site selection strategies, balancing visibility, cultural resonance, and thematic clustering. The map below illustrates flagship store density across Shanghai.
Figure 2: Flagship stores heatmap in Shanghai (Stores opened from 2024 to 1H25)
Note: including 72 flagship stores
Source: JLL Research, July 2025
Analysis of flagship locations in Shanghai reveals three distinct strategic preferences:
1.Core locations:
Prime submarkets like West Nanjing Road, Xintiandi, and People’s Square attract flagship stores due to exceptionally high foot traffic and strong tourist appeal.
2.Historic and cultural districts:
Historic districts and heritage architecture provide authentic cultural context and emotional resonance. Flagships in these locations integrating spatial design with brand culture, creating distinctive experiential environments that enhance storytelling and market differentiation. For example, Chinese fashion group ICCF houses its ICICLE and CARVEN brands within historic buildings in Shanghai's Hengfu area, combining exhibitions, dining, and a bookshop to deepen the experiential appeal.
3.Specialized clusters:
Brands increasingly favour projects or submarkets with curated brand clusters or distinct concepts – such as the sport-outdoor ambience of Shanghai Xuhui Bund or the anime culture hub on East Nanjing Road. These clusters effectively attract targeted consumers and provide ideal venues for community-building events that deepen engagement.
While the above outlines common considerations, brands show clear differences in how they prioritise these three location criteria. Location selection may emphasise single or multiple strategic objectives, as the following sector-specific example illustrate.
Figure 3: Store locations of newly opened flagships in Shanghai (by sector, 2024 - 1H25)
Flagship stores continue to evolve with diverse content and innovative experiences, signalling shifting consumer trends and fuelling market vitality. Shanghai's robust fundamentals and leading commercial maturity will sustain its appeal as a prime destination for flagship and concept stores among both domestic and international brands.