Shoe Shopping in Guangzhou

I'm sorry, I have no photos to go with this post. My camera was stolen. Nonetheless ...

The Shoe District of Guangzhou is somewhere along Zhanxi Road, although I cannot say which suburb of this giant mega-city that's in. A taxi driver should know, especially if you get someone to write the calligraphy (Chinese writing) for "Zhanxi Road Shoe Wholesale District" beforehand.

Like Handbag World in Jiefang North Road ...



(Although this is Handbag Heaven, the layout of shops is almost the same)

... the shoe wholesale district consists of several giant buildings filled with aisle after aisle of untold numbers of tiny shops all dedicated to shoes. Fabulous shoes! And the biggest of all these buildings is Huan Qui Shoe City; the only one I went into. It would take more than a week to do them all.

(I took footage of Huan Qui with my nifty little movie camera and since that wasn't stolen - being in my tote - I will eventually download image into here ... when I finally figure out how to download film footage onto this computer.)

However, I do have to warn you, although this should be Heaven on Earth, if you're shopping for yourself it actually isn't worth going to all the trouble of finding the place - except for the prices which are "rock bottom then dig" - because these giant megastores are mainly designed to hold zillions of little showrooms for wholesalers and not regular shoppers. Shops divvy up their wares into "Sample" and "Stock" - and, yes, they use the English words - and only "stock" is for direct-to-public sale. "Sample" can only be ordered in lots of 20 or more.

And you should know that hardly anyone carries "Stock". Oh, and that if they do have "stock" they put them on trestle tables outside their showrooms, all blocking the already narrow aisles.

So, not a great deal of choice, although, well, there was one pair of boots that were so very gorgeous and the price for 20 was about what you'd regularly pay for a single pair, so I said yes, and began ordering the colours I wanted ... but everyone's going "Mo! Mo!" and it turns out that you have to order 20 identical pairs, and, despite rationalising long and hard, in the end I simply couldn't justify it.

Also you need to know that very little is "Stock" and also that "Stock" is never in the same league as "Sample" as the former seems to be the samples they don't want anymore because no one wanted to order them, mostly with good reason. Although ...

Insider tip: when you see shoes you totally love, point and say "Stock?". Although the answer is almost always "Sample!", occasionally, if you look really pitiful and say "Mo, mo!" they will sell them to you, but only if they have more than one pair in stock.

Nonetheless I got six pairs that were absolutely fabulous, although only one pair I think I'll actually wear. The others? Mmmmm, so unbelievably gorgeous I couldn't not have them, even though I can't see I'll ever have an opportunity to wear them.

And the very best parts of Huan Qui Shoe City?

1) All the sales assistance wear the most fabulous shoes. Like, seriously SERIOUSLY fabulous! Every pair everyone's wearing you just want to rip off their feet. Except, well, the younger girls all seem to currently wear theirs in two different colourways. Yup, one shoe in, say, green and the other in maybe red or black or pink. Could just be a passing fad but ... Show offs!

2) On the 5th floor, right in the heart of Huan Qui, there's a really nice cafe where they let you smoke. It's run by a multi-lingual French girl who's very sweet and they have lots of huge comfy armchairs and make a really fine pot of English tea. And the really ironic part of this is I left all my belongings in here when I went off to find a loo, and they were all exactly where I left them when I came back. It was later on in Starbucks where I was being so careful that I was robbed.

So that's Huan Qui Shoe City. If you own a shoe shop I'd recommend it very highly, but if, like me, you're shopping for yourself ... give it a miss!