Gen Alpha Is Helping Revive China’s Struggling Malls

Shanghai’s Super Brand Mall was in tough shape as China approached the end of the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown. The two-decade-old building was showing its age, customer visits and revenue had stagnated, and about a third of the storefronts were empty. But today, the 13-story shopping centre in the heart of the financial district is brimming with customers, and it consistently figures in “Best Malls in Shanghai” lists on social media. Afternoons and evenings, “it’s nonstop,” says Lily Wang, who works at a playground in the mall. “Kids play while their parents are shopping, and some stay for hours.”

The playground, added last year, highlights what’s driving the turnaround: a reorientation toward the young—a group that increasingly influences spending decisions in Chinese families. The mall today has a “Kids’ Third Home” zone with play areas, theaters, art shows and events tailored to their tastes. Visits and sales revenue for big holidays have seen double-digit annual growth since the renovation was completed in 2023. “I have to bring my daughter there outside peak hours now,” says Serena Li, a 40-year-old finance professional. “It’s literally a sea of humanity on weekends.’’

Across China, shopping centres grappling with the post-pandemic consumption slump and the rapid shift to e-commerce are overhauling their tenant mix and adding activities to cater to Generation Alpha, defined as people born from 2010 to 2024. Grandview Mall in Guangzhou has introduced magic shows, snow tubing, an aquarium and an indoor zoo featuring sloths, toucans and other small animals. Changchun’s New World Living Mall became the northern city’s top family destination after opening kid-friendly facilities and renovating its fake Venetian canal in 2022. And Chengdu’s Tianfu Garden City is starting to look like a theme park, with Disney-style parades and seasonal attractions such as an area designed to look like Santa’s North Pole. “We have seen operators putting together elements favored by young kids and their parents to make malls a central gathering point,” says Zak Dychtwald, chief executive officer of BridgeWorks Global, a research firm in Shanghai.

About two-fifths of Chinese parents say they have significantly increased the share of family spending devoted to their children, according to Zhimeng, a consulting firm in Beijing. Despite a falling birth rate—China registered 7.9 million newborns for 2025, the lowest level since at least the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949—kid-related consumption tops $800 billion a year, accounting for as much as half of overall household spending, the Xinhua news agency reports. Children “are the consumption trigger for families,” says Li Yijun, an analyst with researcher Mintel Group Ltd.

Longer term, the birth deficit poses a risk to these children-focused business models. But Chinese parents have a seemingly inexhaustible appetite for spending on their kids—everything from cram schools and health care to toys and carnival rides. Gen Alpha’s parents, mostly born since 1980, are the first in China that can reasonably be called “consumers.” Gen Alpha’s grandparents, by contrast, endured the hardships of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ’70s.

While earlier generations were conditioned to work long hours and squirrel away savings, today’s parents are happy to spend on leisure. And the willingness to indulge kids is further fuelled by the country’s one-child policy. Repealed only a decade ago, it created the “six-on-one” phenomenon: two parents and four grandparents all focusing their attention on a single child. Even in families that choose to have more than one baby, there’s little evidence of any pullback on the pampering.

The point, of course, is to get parents into malls with their kids so they’ll spend money on family members of all generations rather than shopping online. Visits to the Qingshan InCity mall in Wuhan have more than doubled since a 2022 renovation focused on preteens that included a playground, scientific exhibitions and a 24-hour library. Beijing’s ID Mall has focused on kids since a 2020 relaunch under new owners, helping visits surge tenfold. At Zhoupu Greenland Being Fun Plaza in Shanghai—which has added family-friendly features such as indoor sports and an area where kids can pet cats and rabbits—revenue was on track to jump almost 60 percent last year.

At the Chamtime Plaza in Shanghai, Guo Qiongfang has just spent the morning with her 5-year-old son, Anson. The place offers lessons in dancing, basketball, science, calligraphy and more. She signed the boy up for a 90-minute English class, then rewarded him with an hour driving go-karts, another hour of roller skating and a swing through various toy shops. “We look for places where he can burn off energy,” says Guo, a former manager at internet companies.

The activities, which run as much as 500 yuan ($72) each, are a revenue-generator on their own. But retailers also benefited from impromptu purchases Guo made while her son played—a 500-yuan jacket for her husband and 300-yuan sneakers for Anson. “He’s a picky customer, criticising the boring playground in one mall and the food in another,” Guo says. “We plan our family activities based entirely on his needs.”