Monday, November 23, 2015

Street Market in Hong Kong

Street markets are a phenomenon in Hong Kong, usually selling regular groceries, clothes, bags or some cheap electronic knockoffs.
  1. Ladies Market- don't be fooled by the name. It is for both sexes for finding cheap clothes, toys, knockoff and fake labels. Located in Mong Kok and accessible by MTR or bus.
  2. Temple Street - Sold items are the same as in the Ladies Market, but there are more street food vendors, a handful of fortune tellers and a few Chinese opera singers. Illustrated in hundreds of cantonese films, this street is seen as a must by most tourists.
  3. Flower Market - Prince Edward. Follow your nose to the sweet scents of a hundred different varieties of flowers.
  4. Goldfish Market- A whole street full of shops selling small fish in plastic bags and accessories Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok.
  5. Bird Market- MTR Station Prince Edward, exit "Mong Kok Police Station". Walk down Prince Edward Road West until you reach Yuen Po Street "Bird Garden".
  6. Apliu Street- MTR Station Shum Shui Po, this is the place where you can find cheap computer goods, peripherals and accessories. However, this is the worst place to buy a mobile phone, as they tend to be even more dodgy than small stores in Mongkok.
  7. Stanley Market- A place for tourists rather than locals, shops sell everything from luxury luggage items to cheap brand name clothes. Accessible with the number 40 minibus from Causeway Bay. Also, no.6 and 6A bus from Central, and no. 973 bus from Tsim Sha Tsui.
  8. Textiles - Sham Shui Po MTR exit. Several square blocks around Nam Cheong St. (between Cheung Sha Wan Rd. and Lai Chi Kok Rd.) hold dozens and dozens of wholesalers to the textile trade. Although they are looking for big factory contracts, most shops are friendly and will sell you "sample-size" quantities of cloth, leather, haberdashery, tools, machinery and anything else you can think of to feed your creative impulses. Ki Lung Street has an outdoor street market selling smaller quantities of factory surplus cloth and supplies at astoundingly low prices. Haggling is not necessary.
Be prepared to haggle hard at the markets, as haggling is an art form (or 
  • Learn and practice some Cantonese numbers (especially mmmh-saap ($50), yat-baak ($100) - get these right and you can respond straightaway with a counter offer in Cantonese). Sure, the stallholder will probably know the English word for your number, or have a calculator upon which to quote price and haggle, but using Cantonese numbers shows you mean business, and aren't going to be ripped off easily. If most stallholders understand your pronunciation and one acts like they can't understand, they're attempting to remove your competitive advantage.
  • Determine what you would be prepared to pay for the item, in your home currency and then calculate the equivalent Hong Kong Dollar amount. Then take 20-40% off that price as your final price. For instance, if that pair of Fake Oakley sunglasses are worth $20 to you in your home currency, you should be able to get them for $10-$15 in your home currency. Work out the HKD equivalent of that, and then halve that as your starting haggle price, allowing the stall holder to work down (or you up) until you're below or up to your maximum or until the stall holder gives in.
  • Low ball your offer. You might offend someone if you're too low, but don't let this put you off. Someone else will have the same item in a few stalls down the road. Learn when you've given the "insult" offer, and go a little higher at the next stall.
  • Quote a low price from "the stall down there". Often times these will be owned by the same group of people, but they're often too afraid to check with the other stall, for fear of saving face. Any phone calls checking with their "boss", "sister" or "colleague" are fake. It means that they are satisfied with your price (or you're very close), but don't want to let you know.
  • Don't be fooled by the emotional tactics and the "oh, you're killing me" act. They won't sell at a loss, period. If they're trying this, you're still in the game, so stand firm - it's an act. Occasionally you can put it back on them (eg. I have four girls to pay for, I can't afford to pay too much).
  • If they carry on about quality being the reason they charge more than the stall down the road, don't believe it - most stalls will have identical items at identical quality from the same factory. The odd poor quality item should be fairly easy to distinguish (and obviously the stallholder won't talk up its quality). For instance, if you see a Michael Koors fake purse and it looks rubbish quality, leave it until the next stall has a better one. You know the 'lowest quality' item now, and work from there. If you're buying a gift for someone you don't particularly like, you can really screw down the price on the low quality item by stating "look at this" and showing, for example, the wonky name badge or poor stitching.
  • If you feel you're near a price, but the negotiation is dragging for the sake of HKD10 - say thank you ("Mmmmh Goi") and walk away. You're there, but they want a few extra dollars from you. They will chase you down and let you have it for your final offer (or meet you in the middle between your prices).
  • If you're a couple - play good cop, bad cop. One will be happy to talk to the stallholder, whilst the other plays bad cop (start off by looking disinterested). Good cop turns to bad cop, and they 'talk' about price. Bad cop says "I'm not prepared to pay that much", with negative body language, and good cop makes it appear to the stallholder that "permission" hasn't been granted.
  • DO NOT flash around $500 notes, or wads of cash. Put a few $100 notes in the accessible section of your wallet, and hide the rest. If you run out of accessible money, walk a street over (away from the markets), into 7-Eleven or a retail shop, transfer a little extra money and go back into the markets. If you get $500 notes from the ATM, go to 7-Eleven and buy a drink (beer is a good option, no issues with wandering around drinking it either) to break the note down. If the stallholders think you're made of money, they'll be far harder to bargain with (and a call seems to go out in Cantonese to that effect that "Westerners with money are coming").
  • With that in mind, avoid any tour groups of Western (almost always American) tourists. They seem to either annoy the stallholder (by touching the merchandise unnecessarily and then complaining loudly about the quality, or prices not being listed) or they are the type that the stallholder will absolutely fleece. They will annoy you by clogging up large parts of an already crowded market. If the shop keepers think you're one of the group, negotiation will be very hard. Take a breather, go to the shop for a drink or start at another section of the market.
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