This year, I've had the "privilege" of helping two friends do furniture shopping here in Beijing. The first was responsible for outfitting his parent's new 4-bedroom apartment in a Hebei province city 4 hours away, for their own occupancy. We toured the very high end, low end, Ikea, middling stuff. In the end bought about 2/3 of the major pieces at Qumei (QM) and had it shipped down. And about 1/3 (for the minor rooms like study and kid's room) at Ikea, and also had it shipped. I am not a fan of Ikea but sometimes it fits the bill if you don't need investment grade stuff. I'm sure Shanghai is like Beijing and has an even lower-priced furniture area that does knock-offs of Ikea for less (and equally decent quality). But I don't know the specifics of the Shanghai shopping scene.

For the other friend, she had purchased a big studio apartment in a popular, upscale Beijing complex for rental purposes. We ended up getting bed, wardrobe, living room TV stand/display unit, and desk at Ikea. Then other pieces such as folding shoji divider, small couch, easy chair, tea tables, etc. off of Taobao.com. Had it all delivered and assembled.

Taobao has an amazing array of stuff for reasonable price, just be careful of the shipping/delivery charge before purchasing. Some merchants are very reasonable and others charge a lot.

I agree with moondog that in China, the furniture scene tends to be barbell-shaped--very high end (usually imported) and lower end (including Ikea) but little in the middle that you'd want to buy to keep and ship home.