Shopping in Beijing/Peking/China

Hallo,
Im currently on a trip in China and staying in Beijing, altough this is a mega city, I cant seem to find any needlework/crafting shops. I thought you could buy that stuff here literally at every corner, but shopping in general is so complicated here. Yesterday we went to the Chinese Wall and I asked our tour guide about it and she said it has all moved to e-business.
Anyone still got good tips/adresses?
This is so nuts for non-chinese people here to find out anything, so frustrating....

BoingBoing

Nowadays, if you want something, youll hit up apps like  T a o b a o  or   P i n d u o d u o  (that is essentially the OG Temu). The shipping is exceptionally fast (1-3 days most of the time) and cheap, and you can get whatever caught your eye for almost at wholesale price, also a huge variety of import goods. There are always some ongoing promotions there too, with 6.18 sales starting very soon. Brick and mortar stores are closing in favour of e-commerce, exactly as your tour guide said. Its just way more convenient to do a couple of taps on your phone and then wait until they deliver stuff to your door than to move out and browse physical items. This is a trend for a few years now but got especially bad during/after the pandemic. There are some markets still around, but the places that are easier (somewhat) to navigate for non-Chinese speakers are tourist traps, aka costing an arm and leg for something thatd be 100 RMB tops on  T a o b a o. If you dont mind it, and youre satisfied with getting some touristy baubles and silk goods, then youll find such markets around places of interest. If you want to get some snacks and fancy looking spirits, then you can hit up any store (like Lianhua, those tend to have a good variety) and bust out google translate (or better, download Baidu translate while there - it can translate images and way better at Chinese to English than google) to figure out what is what.

Pro tip: stuff that looks like chocolate cream or chocolate chips is red bean, the fluffy reddish stuff on baked goods is meat floss (shredded jerky), and the white piping on top of pastries is mayo. Always bargain if youre at a market and the prices are not written down like in a proper shop, you show 2 with your index and middle fingers (like the victory symbol - using your thumb and index finger is how you show 8). And never, never, never follow watchbaggers (people who approach you with "Lady, watch, bag?" while holding either fliers of luxury brands or fake Gucci) and never accept invites to traditional teahouses or tea ceremonies.