The scenes on this page show some of the character of China, and Shanghai, today. There are hundreds of stores, large and small.
Many streets are lined with small shops, apparently private.
Many of them are very informal food stores where people pick up breakfast, lunch, dinner, or in-between snacks. It was raining when we were in Shanghai, so there probably wasn't as much street activity as otherwise. You see lots of bicycles in these pictures, and the ubiquitous plastic rain ponchos. The last picture shows people lunching under a highway overpass because of the rain. Even when camping, most Americans sit on the grass, a log, a rock rather than squat.