Phuket Shopping Tips by austarman

Name of Shop: Streetside hawkers and market stalls

This is a very curious site for Phuket actually but it is getting more and more common.
These women are from the hill tribes in the far north of the country but they come to Phuket to sell their wares and to chase the tourist dollar.
They make all their own unique style of cloths ,hats, necklaces and bracelets and even speak their own language although they mostly also speak Thai and limited English too.
I watched them for a while from a local street side bar while I was having a beer and they were doing very well ,selling lots of beads and a couple of hats.
There is plenty of night shopping that you can do here in Patong on any night and there are many interesting people around like these ladies.
Two of the photo's behind are from the market stalls at Wat Chalong where you can buy lot of souvenirs, trinkets and jewelery and the other two photo's are of the beach road and it's shops in Patong.
In every case you need to bargain the price down.

What To Buy: I always like to barter for family or friends gifts from the sidewalk market stalls, but I usually buy my cloths in Patong at one of the the "Ocean Plaza's" department stores.
There is one on the beach road and there is one on Bangla road.
I have found that with cloths the quality is better there than on the street and they have a better range at a fixed price.
They will even adjust the lengths of your jeans or trousers in store for free.
If you spend more than 5000 Baht you can get in store a VAT tax refund form then get some money back in the airport.

What To Pay: A lot cheaper than back home in Australia by at least 50 %.
On the street when I barter I usually end up buying for between 40% and 60% of what they ask for.

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Address: Phuket everywhere
Directions: There are market stalls everywhere in Phuket you wont be missing them.