[79attendees] Shopping at Pearl Market

[Geoff Mulligan <[e-mail]>]

I went to the Pearl Market (they sell more than pearls, like the silk
market sells more than silk) this morning.  It was about a 25-30 min cab
ride (35RMB).  The place is very nice, but expect to get asked by almost
every booth if you want to buy somethings.  Some of the ladies can be
pushy.
        
        There are 4 floors (I think).
        
        Floor 1 - Watches and Electronics
        Floor 2 - Bags, Wallets, Belts, clothes
        Floor 3 - Jewelry (Peals, Jade, ...)
        Floor 4 - More expensive Jewelry
        
You can purchase all sorts of "knock off" watches.  There appeared to be
two grades of knock offs (cheap and cheaper).  They had basically the
same watch in both grades and the difference seems to be the quality of
the band and case.  They said that the crystal was also different as
were the inner works, but I couldn't verify that since I didn't want to
open every watch (and I wouldn't know what I was looking at anyway).
        
Almost every watch or electronics booth had all of the same products so
choosing was just a matter of finding the person you wanted to bargain
with and how anxious they were for a sale.

As Fred said, just be prepared to walk away and you can reduce the price
significantly.  I wont say that you will get a "great deal" 'cause I
can't attest to the quality, but you can get a really nice looking watch
with a fancy name for under 200RMB (and if you are a great negotiator -
which I'm not - probably for less).
        
Since I was there in the morning, I found that asking for the "first
morning price" seemed to get a better price and then offer something
like 20% of that price.  If you are not at the price that you want to
pay, just tell them thanks but you'll look elsewhere and start to leave.
They will usually drop the price further.  Your mileage may vary.
        
I went looking for pearls (got a watch while I was there :-) and also
got a little education on pearls.  As with the watches and electronics,
every booth had much the same products.  If you are a pearl novice, it
seems that there are two types (fresh water and salt water).  Fresh
water pearls are much cheaper, but they can be oddly shaped and not
nearly as round as salt water.  It has something to do with the bait or
the "seed" that used to start the formation of the pearl.  It does seem
that there are some fresh water pearls that do look nearly as good salt
water pearls and much much less expensive.  The difference in price
seems to be because they can "farm" fresh water pearls and the "bait" or
seed can be larger so the pearl gets to the proper size quicker, but at
the cost of luminance.
        
So on the whole, I had a great time at the pearl market and enjoyed the
negotiations and I feel that I got some good/great deals.  If you decide
to try the Pearl Market and want a watch you might want to try a couple
places but I can suggest you stop by booth #82 and talk with Wu Zhao
Zhong (Parker).  He is fun to work with and he also helped me get a much
better price on a replacement battery for my Sony camera.

If you are wanted to get some pearls you might want to check around and
also try "Pretty Jewellery".  They had a small booth on 3rd floor.  They
have a much nicer (though same prices- inline with 3rd floor stalls)
shop on the 4th floor.  I worked with Mary (the daughter-in-law of the
store's General Manager, Juqin Ying).  I think that her name was Mary.
She was really really nice to work with.
        
I found most of the people interesting and fun to talk with and so far
my watch is still working!

                geoff