April 24; The Silk Market

Day 79
Catherine and I headed off to the Silk Market today in the early morning. We heard stories about the market being screamy, aggressive, and generally unpleasant. We thought it would be harder to bargain with the shopkeepers today because it was a rainy morning and the start of tourist season. Our reality was pretty different from what we imagined.
Basically, the market is split into 6 main levels plus a basement. The floors are divided by the type of merchandise being sold, which makes it pretty convenient.

 

6th floor was full of expensive stuff

Knowing what I needed to get, I wasted no time and headed off to the electronics floor and braced myself for the worse. I wanted to get Beats for the little bro and I read on the internet the best price is 120 RMB but they’ll start you off with a ridiculous price like 600 or something. I was surprised by the opening offer from the lady: 220 Y. Damn, I know a lot of tourists would have went with that offer, but I asked for 50 RMB as the starting price. After a bit of bargaining and walking away, she finally gave the price of 120, but before saying okay I pressed my luck and asked for 100. She agreed, and that was that. Not bad.

We walked over to the Friendship Store, which was nothing impressive. It was a small department store like place with expensive things that were useless to me.

                           

We headed back into the silk market to get to the subway station and on route, a hat store caught my attention. I asked the lady how much the snapbacks were and she said 445, but since I could speak Chinese she gave me a discount to 380. I said I would only pay 10 RMB for it, with no real intentions of buying it. At the end of doing nothing but stating my price, she lowered it down to 30. Damn, I didn’t really want it, but I was pretty satisfied with the price I could have gotton it for.

Bargaining tips:

-         Starting prices are not as arbitrary as you think. Some factors that affect the starting price include: how you look, who you’re shopping with.

-         Stand firm so you get the price you want. The price you state is always lower than what you’d actually pay for it.  It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get it. There’s bound to be another shop with the same merchandise.