Another major reshuffle is here! The foot traffic of these shopping malls has suddenly exploded!

In the August 2026 Popular Shopping Mall Ranking released by Winshang Co., Ltd., 490 projects from 32 cities across the country are on the list, with the average daily passenger flow per venue in the month reaching around 60,000, which is basically the same as that in July.

399 projects remained on the list, 62 fewer than in July; 91 newly listed projects, nearly 20% of which are located in Shanghai. This means that the reshuffling intensity of popular projects on the list in 32 cities in August is more drastic than before.

Among the top three seats in each segment, 3 are newly listed projects, and Shanghai BFC Bund Finance Center ranks 2nd in the small and medium-sized project segment.

Shanghai BFC Bund Finance Center saw a sharp surge in popularity in August, which was not only driven by the dividend of the peak tourist season on the Bund, but also the combined effect of the first IP exhibition, fan economy, parent-child experience and nighttime consumption.

The "Butter Bear" Baking-themed Pop-up · Shanghai Debut ran throughout the summer vacation, with 32 butter bear installations distributed in the mall and surrounding blocks. Combined with themed baking sessions, limited-time pop-ups, dessert markets and other contents, it attracted a large number of fans to visit. According to the data released by Huangpu District on August 5, the weekend nighttime passenger flow at BFC increased by more than 20% year-on-year.

In late August, the first national BTS pop-up station landed at BFC. The event gathered more than 150 official HYBE peripherals, including tour limited collectibles, apparel, and support products, and was supported by accompanying dance SHOW, KPOP DJ parties and themed catering. The "Star Wish 48 · Bund Appointment" was jointly presented by Star Dream Idol Project and the female idol group TSH48, integrating comic IP, idol performance, fan autograph sessions and limited peripheral consumption. Relying on the fan base, limited products and fan community activities, it created stronger demand for purposeful visits and peripheral commodity consumption.

At the same time, BFC launched the "Goldfish Theater" immersive art exhibition on B2 floor of the South District. Taking China's thousand-year-old goldfish culture as the theme, it integrates live goldfish display, digital light and shadow, dramatic narration and oriental aesthetics, forming ten themed chapters. In addition, it also held events such as the Bund Cold Drink Festival, Cupid Parade, Terrace Electronic Music Event, and Bund Cool Gathering to further enrich the nighttime consumption content.

Among the 53 top 1 positions in each segment, 11 were promoted from the 2nd and 3rd places in July. Among them, Changsha Guojin Street, Wuhan Yintai Creative City, Shanghai Hongyi International Plaza, and Chengdu Tianfu Square Jinzhan Shopping Mall all rose 2 places to the top of their respective segments.

Changsha Guojin Street and Chengdu Tianfu Square Jinzhan Shopping Mall have the dual attributes of underground commercial streets and transportation connecting channels. During the summer vacation, the popularity of business district tourism soared, and the flow of people transferring from the subway increased sharply, leading to a phased surge in passenger flow of the projects. Of course, it is also related to the upgrading and adjustment of business formats in the malls and the passenger flow agglomeration brought by popular activities. According to reports from Winshang.com, Changsha Guojin Street introduced more than ten urban first stores including IQUNIX, HBN, Molsion, Guyu, and momofamily in the first half of the year, and attracted young consumers through star support, first IP exhibitions and brand linkage.

On the whole, the malls that maintained their rankings and moved against the trend in August have three very distinct common features: event-driven traffic, segmented content, and commercial spillover.

Event-driven traffic: Malls are getting better at "creating a must-come reason". Instead of relying on regular promotions, they have one or more sufficiently specific event-based passenger flow entrances. Consumers do not come because "I want to go shopping today", but because "there is something worth coming for here today".

Segmented content: Instead of pleasing everyone, it accurately "gathers a specific group of people". The action power of segmented customer groups is stronger than that of general customers. They have clear purposes, are willing to travel across districts, and are prone to repeated visits.

Commercial spillover: The real large traffic increasingly comes from "outside the mall". Some projects may not hold phenomenal activities themselves, but gain traffic because they are located around large-scale urban events.

01.

Shanghai in the TOP50 Camp

Major ranking reshuffle, 17 new listed projects

In August, the summer tourist flow received by Shanghai commercial projects reached a new high. The growth of popularity in shopping malls increasingly depends on two capabilities: first, leveraging urban tourism resources to undertake external consumer passenger flow; second, through high-frequency content updates, converting one-time check-ins into continuous visits.

With multiple factors overlapping, the August Shanghai Popular Shopping Mall List saw 18 new entrants, accounting for nearly 40%. However, most of them are position swaps of marginal projects on the list, 15 of which are ranked after the 10th place, and only BFC Bund Finance Center (2nd) and Qiaoyao Qiantan (6th) are obvious high-position new entrants.

By type, the 17 new entrants are mainly regional and community-based businesses as the main increment, with passenger flow coming from summer families, catering, entertainment and nighttime consumption in peripheral areas, rather than a comprehensive rise in traditional core business districts. In terms of grade, Grade A and Grade B account for more than 90%. They are not all top-tier businesses, indicating that short-term activities and seasonal passenger flow have a great impact on rankings.

// Gate M West Bank Dream Center: Driven significantly by Riverside Night Economy, since mid-July, nearly 40 catering merchants have extended their nighttime business hours to the early morning, opening up diversified nighttime consumption methods. In August, the "Waterfront Music Festival X Tipsy Summer Night" gathered micro-tipsy bars from all over the country, organizing music performances, open-air movies and nighttime catering into a complete leisure experience.

// Magnolia Square: The keyword that detonated the traffic in August is BIGBANG. From August 21 to September 7, the official pop-up store of BIGBANG 2026-2027 World Tour landed in the LG2 atrium of Magnolia Square. The project was transformed into a super "pain building", holding a giant screen support activity that projected the idol-themed pictures on the outer facade of the building about 320 meters high.

// Kerry Parkside Pudong: Classic anime IP covers young consumers and parent-child families. From mid-June to the end of August, Kerry Parkside Pudong launched the national debut of the "SpongeBob SquarePants" IP "Residents of Bikini Bottom". With the theme of "The Fish-tastic Summer", it transformed the outdoor atrium into a Bikini Beach resort scene. The themed pop-up store gathered hundreds of peripheral products and launched a number of limited products for the first time.

In August, there are 6 projects in the Shanghai Popular Shopping Mall TOP Ranking whose ranking rose by ≥5. Two S-level projects — Shanghai New World Marui Center NEW ONE and Shanghai Grand Gateway 66, strive for more young customer groups and non-shopping consumers through extended business hours, scene experience and content operation.

Shanghai New World Marui Center NEW ONE was officially renovated and upgraded from the original New World Daimaru Department Store earlier this year, with open storefronts along the street, transformation of lower floors, and upgrading of higher floors, highlighting youthfulness, scenario and internationalization. In August, the CPB "Day & Night Radiant Cruise" · Shanghai Stop landed, with themed installations, product experiences and interactive check-ins, attracting beauty consumers to visit actively; the commercial short drama "Come to Marui, Meet New Life" was staged, through character stories, plots and scene implantation, turning the shopping mall from a pure consumption place into a place where stories happen.

At Shanghai Grand Gateway 66, the "66 Unrestrained Summer" themed activity combines sports, music and nighttime socializing. The "Summer Surf Park" introduces experience projects such as wading, shallow water surfing and wake surfing, with five reservation sessions arranged every day; the Sunset Music Festival invited musicians including Young-G, Wang Xiaocao, Yao Weitao and Liu Keshua to perform; in cooperation with Tatler China, it created the "Sunset Paradise" gathering 8 popular Asian bars.

By the end of the month, the Miriam Yeung Original Am'miri Limited Pop-up took over, with the theme of "Welcome to Am'miri's Home", forming a time linkage with Miriam Yeung's Shanghai concert on August 29, providing fans with an offline check-in scene outside the concert.

02.

TOP30 Camp

Beijing / Shenzhen / Guangzhou / Chengdu

In August, 120 projects from Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chengdu were on the list, of which 100 remained on the list, 14 fewer than in July.

Among the 20 new entrants, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shenzhen account for 4, 5, 6 and 5 respectively. Among them, Chengdu Chunxi Shimao Plaza, Chengdu Jianfa Luzhouli, Longfor Chengdu Jinchen Tianjie, and Guangzhou Wanbo Sihai City have their passenger flow rankings enter the top 5 of their respective volume segments.

In August, Chengdu Chunxi Shimao Plaza reaped the traffic dividend of the "star big screen economy". From Wang Yibo's birthday big screen, Liu Yu's big screen, Cyndi Wang's birthday Chengdu support big screen, Yunqi's birthday big screen, to Tan Songyun's drama promotion big screen for Lan Xiang Ru Gu, Liu Yifei's birthday big screen, Li Landi's birthday big screen, Shang Wenjie's 20th debut anniversary big screen... Relying on the about 462 ㎡ giant screen in the core area of Chunxi Road, the project has become an important check-in point for fan support, continuously generating social platform topics and young passenger flow for Chunxi Shimao Plaza.

Apart from the fan economy, the growth of passenger flow at Chengdu Chunxi Shimao Plaza in August is also related to the concentrated outbreak of the two-dimensional economy. Through vertical segmented activities such as "Sunny Summer · National Otome ONLY" and Haidilao X Tian Guan Ci Fu Pop-up, it strengthened the presence of Chunxi Shimao Plaza among young consumer groups in Chunxi Road.

The biggest consumption explosion point of Guangzhou Wanbo Sihai City in August was the Qixi Festival. The most eye-catching thing was that the outdoor LED big screen was directly replaced with Qixi confession content, forming a photo check-in point for couples. At the same time, many catering and retail merchants in Sihai City participated in the Qixi marketing, launching couple set meals, rose gifts, limited desserts and other offerings.

This is particularly important for Sihai City, because it is an open commercial project with strong attributes of catering, socializing and nightlife. The Qixi Festival is not just a single activity, but connects the big screen check-in, parties, catering, bars / tipsy experiences, and nighttime socializing into a complete consumption chain.

Among the 12 top 1 positions, 8 remained on the list, and among the 4 promoted projects, in addition to Chengdu Tianfu Square Jinzhan Shopping Mall, there are also Guangzhou PO PARK Oriental Baotai, Guangzhou Liwan Link Plaza, and Shenzhen Link Central City.

Those who remained on the list have continuous great customer gathering tricks. CapitaMall · Xizhimen used super IP to turn summer traffic into "destination passenger flow". The Harry Potter 25th Anniversary Limited Pop-up launched themed scenes of Diagon Alley and Hogwarts, as well as limited first-release products such as Niffler plush transportation cards, attracting a large number of fans to make special trips for check-ins.

At Beijing Chaoyang Hopson One, many Beijing and North China first stores were concentratedly unveiled in August, resulting in a wave of queues one after another, including Pop Mart's first double-floor urban flagship store in Beijing, OCHIRLY's first national gold-label store, Mr. Stone's first national hamburger store, Big Mouth Beast Fresh Snack Shop, and Gaofan's limited-time boutique at Hopson One Beijing.

Guangzhou Liwan Link Plaza launched the "Growth Settlement" Children's Block in mid-July. This is another key implementation of the project's "layer-by-layer progressive, systematic renovation" strategy in recent years, following the renovation of the B1 floor "Foodie+" food block, the L2 floor Yonghui Supermarket renovated store, and the L1 floor Decathlon upgraded store, marking the project's important attempt to continuously adapt to community parent-child supporting facilities.

The popularity of Shenzhen Link Central City soared in August, and the most direct engine came from the first offline store of Elephant Supermarket in South China. On August 28, the Elephant Supermarket with an area of over 3000 ㎡ officially opened, and a large number of online users "met offline". Three days after the opening, the traffic of vehicles and passenger flow in the mall both increased by 50% month-on-month, with the highest single-day passenger flow reaching 150,000 person-times, setting a new historical high for the project.

At the same time, in the first half of this year, the project introduced more than 40 new stores to further enhance the freshness of the brands in the mall. The project continues to optimize layered refined operations: the G floor focuses on trendy retail to intercept subway passenger flow, the B1 floor focuses on high-frequency rigid demand to pull down the flow of people, and the M/L1 floors focus on strengthening catering first stores and social scenarios, promoting Link Central City to enter a concentrated passenger flow release period in August.

03.

TOP20 Camp

Wuhan / Chongqing / Nanjing / Hangzhou / Suzhou / Xi'an

120 projects from 7 cities including Wuhan, Chongqing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Xi'an are on the list, of which 98 remained on the list, 22 are "newly listed", 4 more than in July.

Among the newly listed projects, Hangzhou Jindi T-ONE MO and Wuhan HANKOU STAY rank 3rd in their respective segments; Xi'an Lifengcheng LE CITY is the only "new face" in Xi'an in August.

Hangzhou Jindi T-ONE MO is in its first complete summer vacation after opening. It is relatively close to the Olympic Sports venues and connected to Xingxiao Station of Metro Line 7, so the catering, waiting and post-concert passenger flow brought by concerts naturally spill over to the mall. Wuhan HANKOU STAY is located above the Jianghan Road subway, directly undertaking the passenger flow dividend brought by the sharp increase of summer tourists in Wuhan; and relying on a rich two-dimensional brand matrix, combined with goods, Cos