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Focuses upon shopping centre developments through joint venture enterprises. By adapting the process proposed by Churchill to develop measures of marketing constructs, an instrument to assess perceived attractiveness of joint venture shopping centres in China is formulated. The proposed instrument (SCATTR) contains 21 attributes in five dimensions and exhibits high internal consistency and validity. The purpose of this instrument is to provide China’s joint venture shopping centres with an indication of their performance as well as an avenue to gain more knowledge about consumers in China. Concludes that the SCATTR instrument is a reliable and valid tool to assess the attractiveness and performance of shopping centres as perceived by consumers.

Since the “open‐door” policy was introduced in 1978, China’s socio‐economic development has been impressive, and the standard of living of its approximately 1.2 billion population has generally improved. However, with the rapid economic development and technological advancement comes the inevitable income and social inequality between urban and rural residents as well as among the populace in different regions of China. The disparity in consumption and shopping patterns between higher income and lower income consumers, as well as the recent deflation and “premature consumption psychology” phenomenon in China, have become major challenges for existing shopping centers, and the development of the retail sector as a whole. Based on official data from 1991 to 1998 and empirical evidence from a 1998/9 study, this paper examines the differences in consumption and shopping patterns among consumers in China and discusses the reasons behind such disparity.