Shopped Beijing 'til we Dropped

We had a brief introduction to shopping 'Chinese Market Style' on our first day in Beijing when we had a few hours to kill.  We went with Craig, the resident Aussie in the group, and a previous Beijing market veteran.  The general consensu is that you take whatever their first offer is and stick to 10%.  That was most often a number that worked but not before a lot of sale pitch drama.  Craig was a one man bad cop show while Patti, myself and the kids were able to play bad cop, good cop and cute but limited budget kids.  

Here is Tara's 'Welcome to the Silk Market' pose and the beginning of six floors of shopping mayhem.

We struck out on our own the next day for a buying expedition of epic proportions.  The first thing we bought was a $27 backpack to replace mine that I purchased for $300 in the States twenty years ago.  Many of the buckles and straps had broken as it had seen hundreds of miles of outdoor backpacking and tens of thousands of international travel miles.

All monetary units in this post are expressed in US Dollars.

It was a good thing this was the first purchase as over the next six, yes, six hours we hit both the Pearl Market and the Silk Markets and filled it up with -

  (Some items purchase earlier in the trip, but this makes a nice tally)

  4 coats @ $17 each = $68

  1 pair of shoes @ $20 = $20

  2 pairs of shoes @ $8 each = $16

  2 pairs of shoes @ $4 each = $8

  4 watches for (price is a gift secret)

  2 necklaces @ $8 each = $16

  2 Chinese style dresses @ $13 each = $26

  1 pair flip flops @ $3 = $3

  6 doll umbrellas for (price is a gift secret)

  2 human sized umbrellas @ $2 each = $4

  2 little purse bags @ $2 each = $4

  4 pairs sunglasses @ $8 each = $32

  2 fans @ $2 each = $4

  2 panda bears @ $5 each = $10

  1 t-shirt @ $9 = $9

One of the odd things is that there is no Made in China tags on many of these things, are the Chinese outsourcing?

Backpack...loading in progress.

Patti had quite an interesting exchange with a shoe saleswoman.  She was tough, Patti was tough, the battle was epic.  I have a video to prove it, I need to figure out how to post it.  

When trying to get your price you first get all the opening sales Kung Fu moves like -

  You my friend

  I like you a lot

  I make you special price

  You are first sale today

  Why you look anywhere else, all the same

  This is finest quality latest edition

Then mid sale when you are working on the price -

  You crazy mister

  I make no money

  Why you act like this

  You serious crazy

  Quit joking me

Then if you seal the deal at close to 10% of the first price -

  You really tough

  You drive hard bargain

  You buy more

Patti and I have been wearing money belts in China for our money, passports, transport tickets and anything we just cannot lose.  There have been some warm days and as you might imagine the belt and its contents get a little damp.  Over the course of the shopping day the belt and all of its contents collected more and more dampness(sweat).  When I made my last purchase the seller remarked that I had really wet money.  I was thinking, dude, you don't want to know what kind of wet that is.

That damp money was spent on what could have been the finest made, most expensive t-shirt known to man.  Her starting price was about $60 which is the truly crazy price.  I just got done buying some cool fleece jackets for $17.  I moved her down to $20 but she would not budge off of that.  When I argued that I just bought jackets for $17, she said that t-shirts are more expensive to make and this is finest quality cotton in all of China(it was good quality, or at least better then the rest).  I tired to explain the obvious like what about all the zippers, stitching, Velcro and fleece that goes into a jacket.  Still not budging.  Coat is cheap quality, this is highest, she insisted.  Then the bad cop(Patti) came in and laid down the hammer, because she was done for the day.  $8.  I then leveraged that with a, "Hey you don't have to live with her, better make me a deal."  Got it for $9.  The best approach is to leave the store, but I was tired and did not want to walk into another,