Getting medicine and everyday supplies in Shanghai: pharmacies, convenience stores and supermarkets

What actually frightens a traveller is rarely a sight. It is waking on day three with a stomach that is not right, or finding the sunscreen finished, the lens solution down to its last layer, the baby’s nappies down to the last two. You know these things can be bought; you do not know which door to walk through, or what to say inside. This is the map: which kind of shop solves which problem, and when to stop shopping and head to a hospital instead.

The pharmacy: the most useful stop

Pharmacies are thick on the ground in Shanghai, one within a few minutes’ walk in most built-up streets, marked with a green cross. A pharmacy is not a hatch for prescriptions. It is a shop you can walk into and point at a shelf in, where someone comes over to help.

Two kinds need separating. A chain pharmacy has a shopfront, a full range, a pharmacist on duty and a screened-off prescription counter. A medicine counter inside a supermarket or convenience store is a few shelves of plasters, antiseptic and everyday over-the-counter items, with nobody able to advise you. Solve problems at the first; buy plasters on the way past at the second.

One difference worth knowing: you ask for cold medicine, and the assistant tends not to ask which brand but what the symptoms are, fever or not, cough or not, loose stools or not. This is normal, and it helps you. Medicines are shelved by symptom, one symptom has many options, and the pharmacist needs the symptom to judge the category.

The commonest trap: the line between prescription and over-the-counter is not the same in both countries. Some things you pick up without thinking at home are prescription-only here, and the reverse happens too. Antibiotics are the usual example and need a prescription by rule, so do not argue at the counter; register at a hospital.

Buying by symptom: the categories a traveller actually uses

• Painkillers and fever medicine (止痛退烧药). Headache, toothache, period pain, the ache after a sprain, fever. Tablets, capsules, sachets, children’s syrup: say who it is for and how old before buying.
• Stomach medicine and oral rehydration salts (肠胃药, 口服补液盐). Loose stools are the commonest accident of a trip. Anti-diarrhoeals are one category; rehydration salts are another, dissolved in water as the packet says, against dehydration, and that one is most often overlooked, especially with children. Bloating and reflux have their own products.
• Antihistamine (抗过敏药). Pollen, hives, the itch of bites. Some cause drowsiness; ask the pharmacist which one you want.
• Plasters and dressings (创可贴, 敷料). Every size, plus gauze, adhesive dressings, tape and antiseptic for external use.

The reality to accept: the box you know probably does not exist here. Over-the-counter medicines are mostly made locally, and the same ingredient often comes under another name, pack and strength. Do not hunt for a brand: bring a photograph of the empty box, or state the ingredient and the purpose, and let the pharmacist choose within the category.

A pharmacy is not a doctor: when to stop

A pharmacy handles the one-off, the mild and the thing you already recognise: an ordinary cold, a day of trouble after a bad meal, a blister, a turned ankle. Its advice is usually enough.

It cannot diagnose. If a symptom persists, worsens, or leaves you uneasy, go to a hospital, and do not work through several shops’ shelves in turn. Specifically: a fever that will not come down, severe pain low on the right of the abdomen, vomiting to the point of not keeping water down, blood or black stool, breathlessness, chest pain, confusion after a head injury, bleeding that will not stop, a child clearly not themselves.

A hospital has two entrances:

• General and emergency departments of a public hospital. Strong, broad and relatively cheap, but crowded, slow and almost entirely in Chinese, with registration, consultation, tests and medicine paid at separate windows in separate queues. For anything urgent, the nearest hospital beats the best one.
• The international or VIP clinic, and international hospitals. Attached to a large hospital or independent, markedly dearer, able to bill international insurance directly, staffed with English speakers, quick to be seen. Language is largely a non-issue there; in a general department it is a translation app and a notepad.

Either way, carry your passport, your insurance details and a card in Chinese listing allergies and current medicines. Ambulance and emergency numbers are in the health and safety guide.

Convenience stores, supermarkets, and which counter has what

A convenience store is the last hundred metres of retail: small, dense, open late, selling one portion of what you need now and cannot be bothered to walk further for. Bottled water, drinks, snacks, instant noodles, umbrellas, tissues and wet wipes, masks, sanitary towels, charging cables, batteries, basic toiletries, plasters.

They are everywhere because the model is position and hours, not range. Many trade around the clock, but do not assume every one does; the shop with 24 hours on the sign is the one that does; those near stations, hospitals and main junctions are likelier to, and a small residential one may shut at midnight.

A supermarket solves other problems: buy it all at once, read the label, buy the large size. Large chains and the food halls under department stores carry fresh produce, dairy, water by the case, imported food, baby supplies, laundry detergent and full ranges of toiletries; a neighbourhood supermarket is smaller but nearer. Its real advantage is the label: ingredients, origin and shelf life printed on the pack.

For specific items:

• Contact lens solution. An optician, or a pharmacy’s lens counter; lenses and solution count as medical devices here, and supermarkets and convenience stores do not stock them.
• Sunscreen. Supermarket toiletries, a personal care chain or a pharmacy’s cosmetics counter; it sells out in summer and peak season.
• Razors and blades. Supermarket aisles and personal care shops, disposables in convenience stores. Fittings may not match the handle you brought, so bring blades.
• Laundry detergent. Large bottles in supermarkets, travel sizes in convenience stores; liquids are awkward to fly with.
• A power adapter. At an electronics counter, an electronics market or a department store accessories section, not a pharmacy. Sockets are mostly flat two-pin and angled three-pin, at 220 volts.
• Sanitary products. Towels in convenience stores, supermarkets and pharmacies; tampons are far less common, so bring them.
• Baby supplies. Nappies, wipes, baby food and formula at supermarkets and mother-and-baby shops.

Paying and being understood: a thirty-second transaction

These transactions are short: point, hear the price, scan, leave, often in under half a minute, with nobody grading your pronunciation. A translated line of Chinese on your phone does more than an hour of tone practice. Type “something for diarrhoea”, “a small pack”, “how do I take this” before you go in, or show the photograph of the empty box.

Shelves are arranged by purpose, not by brand: cold remedies in one row, stomach medicines in another, external preparations in another, patent Chinese medicines usually in their own section. Find the section, then choose within it.

Payment is by QR code: pharmacies, convenience stores and supermarkets all take Alipay and WeChat Pay bound to a foreign card; cash usually works, though change may be awkward. Ask for the fapiao if you need a receipt for insurance. The payments guide has the detail.

Prescriptions you bring, and what to decide before you fly

Customs rules on personal medication depend on the destination country and on the drug, and there is no single answer. Check with the destination customs authority and the airline before you fly; narcotic, psychotropic and some compound preparations fall under control, and the customs service’s answer governs. Keep original packaging and the doctor’s letter, and put copies of prescriptions in your hand luggage.

Who this is for: anyone arranging their own trip and staying more than three days; families needing nappies and fever medicine at short notice; anyone staying long enough that errands become part of the day. If you need a specific imported medicine or a prescription, this guide cannot help.

The honest closing. Pack what you will need rather than planning to buy it: your prescriptions, the painkiller and antihistamine you are used to, rehydration salts, plasters, sunscreen, lenses and solution, blades, the sanitary products you use, the formula your child will accept. All of it exists here, but available is not the same as available in the version you will actually use, and the day you go looking is usually the day you feel worst.

Three things are easier to buy here than to bring: water by the case, which you do not have to carry; an umbrella, because the rain arrives suddenly and both kinds of shop have them; and liquids such as detergent, which would not clear security anyway.