CHINASHOP History

Buyers hosted booths, while suppliers approached them on-site with solutions.

This was the frontier era of China’s modern retail industry. Standardized retail infrastructure—such as checkout counters, shelving systems, and refrigeration equipment—barely existed. Retailers aiming to open a supermarket often had to rely on local carpenters or metal workshops to produce basic fixtures, with little standardization, scalability, or aesthetic consideration.

At this stage, the exhibition logic was almost the reverse of today. Retailers and buyers were the primary exhibitors, presenting themselves as potential partners. Suppliers, carrying samples and capabilities, actively visited these booths to demonstrate what they could provide.

Factories took center stage, and store equipment became the core exhibits.

As international retail giants such as Carrefour, Walmart, and Metro expanded rapidly in China, the industry entered a phase of learning and replication. Comprehensive retail standards—store layout, customer flow, merchandising logic, cold-chain requirements, and equipment specifications—were systematically introduced.

At the same time, international retail equipment manufacturers and supply chain companies established operations and factories in China, while domestic suppliers began to grow at scale.

During this period, CHINASHOP underwent a fundamental transformation. Store equipment—including shelving, refrigeration, lighting, and checkout systems—became the centerpiece of the exhibition. The show evolved into a professional platform for retail infrastructure, effectively becoming a “factory showcase” for the industry.

Retailers no longer needed to search for individual workshops. Instead, CHINASHOP enabled one-stop sourcing solutions that made standardized, turnkey store development possible.

Integration of hardware and software, with early digital solutions emerging.

Entering the 2010s, China's retail industry began to experience deeper structural change. Consumption upgrades, accelerated urbanization, and expanding store networks made it clear that hardware alone could no longer support complex operations.

The relationship between people, products, and retail spaces started to be redefined.

CHINASHOP's content expanded accordingly, incorporating ERP systems, retail management software, system integration solutions, network gateways, early data analytics tools, cold-chain logistics, warehousing and distribution systems, and fresh food processing and packaging solutions.

Retail was no longer just about opening a good store—it became about managing hundreds or thousands of stores through systems and data.

Integration of hardware and software, with early digital solutions emerging.

With global attention drawn by Amazon Go and the rapid rise of Alibaba's Hema stores in China, "New Retail" became a defining concept of the era. Online-offline integration, real-time fulfillment, data-driven merchandising, and automated retail models entered large-scale experimentation.

This period injected new vitality into CHINASHOP. E-commerce platforms, technology companies, and data service providers moved from the periphery to the center of the exhibition.

The show evolved from a venue for displaying equipment into a comprehensive platform for discussing retail models, operational efficiency, and customer experience. CHINASHOP increasingly served as a bridge between retail innovation and real-world implementation.

Today, the retail industry stands at the threshold of another structural transformation. Reinforcement learning, generative AI, computer vision, and intelligent forecasting systems are deeply reshaping merchandising, pricing, inventory, workforce scheduling, marketing, and supply chain decision-making.

In this phase, CHINASHOP's focus has shifted once again—from whether technology works, to how AI fundamentally improves retail efficiency and organizational capability.

CHINASHOP is no longer merely a witness to change. It has become an important testing ground for the deployment and scaling of next-generation retail technologies.