Shopping in Thailand

Sawadee krup TBF Travelers!

While shopping is not one of my top three most-exciting-things to do in Thailand I do enjoy buying cool stuff on every trip. My range of items tends to be limited to Thai amulets, books, and bootleg DVDs – but I occasionally surprise my wife and purchase a hand crafted item in an obscure local shop or market that she likes. There are many shopping bargains in Thailand and we will have some fantastic shopping opportunities on our trips this fall.

An opportunity that will present itself immediately upon arrival in Bangkok is a chance to shop at the Chatuchak Weekend Market, the world’s largest outdoor market. The shopping excursion to Chatuchak – which is only open on Saturday and Sunday, will take place pretty quickly after checking in to the hotel upon your arrival in Bangkok . With a check in around 1 pm and a departure for the market via the Skytrain within a half hour of checking in, there will be about 3 hours of shopping available at the world’s largest outdoor market. If someone asked me where was the best place to buy anything in Thailand I would answer: Chiang Mai, or the Weekend Market. Because the best of everything sold in Thailand is made in Chiang Mai, and it is all available for sale at the Weekend Market. With three hours of shopping you will not be able to cover all of the stalls selling everything imaginable, but you will get to see quite a bit and still make it back for the opening night welcome dinner. You can decide after upon your arrival in Bangkok if you wish to do the trip to Chatuchak or rest until dinner – after the flight you may either be wired and ready for action or tired and ready for bed. The round trip to and from Chatuchak will take place on the Skytrain, along with possibly a motorcycle taxi ride.

Your shopping in Thailand can be grouped into four locations: on the street, at the market, in the store, and at the mall. Each location has a range of items available for sale, although sometimes the same item can be bought in all four locations for a hugely different price. Here are some distinctions on each of the four locations and the type of discount you can possibly expect from bargaining. A disclaimer regarding bargaining: each individual vendor, seller, owner, and employee will have their own policy on bargaining. There is no ‘rule of discount’ anywhere or anytime. The amounts estimated below are based upon my ten+ years of shopping in Thailand ; mostly with my Thai wife who is a fantastic shopper and charms a discount out of everyone. So smile when you ask how much, smile when you bargain, and smile if you walk away – with or without the purchase. That is the Thai way.

On the street. This is the first point of sales you will encounter in Thailand . Everything from breakfast, lunch and dinner to Rolex watches and Thai silk is sold on the streets from local vendors. In Bangkok this is a daily and nightly occurrence with claimed spots used by the same vendors for years to offer their wares. The quality of goods will vary from mass produced knock-offs of popular brand names to second hand vendors selling items on a blanket. The vendors can be insistent and persuasive and the prices are usually the highest of any location. A good starting bid on any item sold from a street vendor is 50% of the asking price. But don’t be surprised if the seller is brusque or acts offended when you try to bargain. Your best bargaining tool is usually the fake ‘walk-away’ – which can instantly knock hundreds of Baht from your price. This is also a smart thing to do if the seller gets too aggressive. There will be a chance to do some ‘street shopping’ right from the hotel in Bangkok and while roaming around on Monday. Down at the beach locations street vendors will be located near the resorts and in the beach areas.

At the market. There are local markets everywhere, and there will be morning markets and night markets, both selling a mix of fresh and prepared food, local handicrafts, and useful household items. Some markets are permanent and some are traveling markets. Most local markets will feature smaller vendors selling either homemade items and goods or offering items imported from Chiang Mai or China . Local markets are the ‘supermarkets’ of many local areas: the place where people come to buy their daily food items for their families along with socializing and meeting their friends. You can often find some handmade craft items or wares at local markets found nowhere else. Local markets will usually offer a bit of a discount, of maybe 10 to 20% on some items, but not on food items. You can sometimes get a discount if you buy in volume, and even more likely if you speak a little Thai. We will get to visit a local night market in Khao Lak and on Koh Samui, and visit a huge local market in Krabi during our stay at Railay Bay . Travelers on the Thailand Beach Adventure if you walk out of the Ibis Riverside Hotel and turn left on the main street you will find a morning food market daily from 5 to 8 am just a half a kilometer away at the temple..

In the store. There will be plenty of ‘tourist stores’ throughout our trip; places that sell a mix of the typical tourist goods: t-shirts, hats, sunglasses, sarongs, and other souvenirs, plus may offer some specialty items like scuba and snorkeling gear, or ceramic Buddha statues, or cameras and binoculars. Some stores will offer discounts, others the prices will be marked and there will be no bargaining. In some stores there will be a sign stating: “Fixed prices – no bargaining” to eliminate any confusion. There will be small stores in the airports selling books and souvenirs. The book selection is usually good, with the prices slightly higher than other book stores. The most popular store you will see in Thailand is 7-Eleven. They will be very common in Bangkok and in the beach areas on both trips. 7-Elevens have three important uses for our travelers: we will stop at 7-Elevens for a great selection of drinks and snacks on all our activities so everyone stays hydrated, use them at the end of the day for stocking up your hotel room on water and other beverages so you don’t pay the mini-bar, and breaking 1,000 Baht notes which most local businesses will not take. Besides 7-Eleven the other popular convenience store chain that will suffice is Family Mart.

At the mall. In Bangkok there are so many malls I cannot even name them all. There are 6 huge malls all within a mile of each other right in downtown Bangkok , or Mall Central. Siam Square, Siam Center, Discovery Center , Paragon, Central World, and MBK, each larger than any normal suburban mall in California , are lined up side by side down and across the street. Malls are very popular in Bangkok . We will get a chance to visit one of them on Monday after the tour of the Royal Grand Palace to eat lunch in an air conditioned Thai food court that is tucked in among an array of international restaurants and food markets including two wonderful smelling and tasting bakeries with breads and pastries to die for. That afternoon continuing to explore the malls or receiving a two-hour Thai massage will be the options. Once we leave Bangkok the ‘malls’ become a bit different, dominated by one large store of either Big C or Tesco, which is the second largest retailer in the world behind Wal-Mart. These malls or super stores are great places to shop for deals on clothing and basic supplies such as food items, toothpaste, sunblock, towels, etc…rather than at a tourist store because of the lower prices and greater variety. We will run into one or the other: Tesco or Big C at each of our locations and their Thai food courts always are reliable for air conditioning, delicious Thai food, cheap prices, and no smoking. Four items you are not guaranteed at all restaurants in Thailand . Malls don’t bargain – but they have awesome sales. You will be amazed how low priced some of the items are at these local malls.

If you are a big shopper and plan on purchasing many items at the start of the trip in Bangkok , one of the first things you should get is a ‘Chinese suitcase’. These are heavy duty vinyl suitcase bags that are super durable and can be packed full of items. They only cost about 2-3 dollars and they zip up and stand just like a suitcase with shopping bag handles. The bags are easily identifiable by their bright vertical color stripes. A Chinese suitcase makes it easy to haul whatever you buy to each location.

A great bargains in Thailand is tailored clothing; you can have a custom made dress or suit fitted to you in 3 sessions for a third or less of what it would cost here. There will be opportunities to have this done while we are at Railay Bay and on Koh Samui. Koh Samui is famous for its local artists who have art studios with beautiful large oil paintings on display in all the main tourist areas, and at Railay Bay we will get to wander through a huge local market selling everything from fresh fish and fruit to engines and automotive supplies.

If there is something specific or special you would like to purchase while in Thailand please let us know and we will try to arrange that opportunity for you. Please send over any general or specific questions you have about shopping in Thailand .

Bill