I am Li Kai. I like shopping. My classmates and I usually go shopping on Sundays. Some people like shopping because they want to buy something. But I am different, I want to know the new thing in the markets. I am a “window shopper (购物者)”. Window shoppers don’t buy things, they just look at the new things. Window shopping really brings me a lot of fun. When I need to buy some food and school things, I usually go to the supermarket. I can buy almost everything in the supermarket.

I also like online (网上的) shopping. A lot of young people in China like online shopping. Because we don’t need to go outside. And we don’t need to bring a wallet (钱包). We usually use Alipay (支付宝) to pay.

Malls (购物中心) are popular places for Americans to go to. Some people who spend much time at malls are called “Mall rats”. Mall rats shop until they visit hundreds of stores. American people like malls for many reasons. Parking is free. And the air inside (里面的) is always fine.

The biggest mall in the US is the Mall of America in Minnesota. It covers 4.2 million square feet (平方英尺). It has 350 stores, eight clubs, and a large park! There are parking places for 12,750 cars. About 750,000 people shop there every week.

The first mall in the US was built (建造) on December 20th, 1965 in Edina Minnesota. People love doing all their shopping in one place. More malls are built in the country. Now people can do many things in malls. They shop, and of course, they also eat in food courts (广场) that have food from all over the world. They see films at theaters. Some people even get their exercise by doing the new sport of “mall walking”. Others go to malls to meet friends.

In some malls, people can see the doctor and even go to the church (教堂). In other words, people can do almost everything in malls. Now people can live in their favourite shopping centers in fact.

Recently, secondhand transaction (交易) has become quite popular in our daily life. More and more secondhand goods have found their way in the market, such as used books, furniture and even cars. Why do so many people like to buy secondhand goods? One of the most important reasons is that the Internet provides a more convenient and quicker transaction platform (平台) for secondhand goods.

Li Li, 29, an office worker in Shanghai, sells used products online. Since she began to cooperate with a secondhand transaction platform two years ago, she has sold nearly 14,000 yuan of goods.

The size of China’s secondhand product market rose from about 300 billion yuan in 2015 to more than 1 trillion yuan in 2022. Xinhua News Agency reported that the rapidly growing Chinese online resale platforms have also driven secondhand transactions.

“The increase shows Chinese young people’s changing views on consumption (消费),” said Zhang Li, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. “Traditionally, buying used products is often seen as a sign of being poor that is socially shameful. But today they focus on the actual value of the product instead of whether it is completely new,” said Zhang.

Secondhand consumption also shows the ideas of environmental protection and the need to cut down on waste. “Humans are the creators of things in life and should be responsible for everything they create,” said Lu Yaping, the founder of a secondhand goods exchange platform.