Rome Shopping Tips by maritoni

VIA CONDOTTI - upscale boutiques from Hermes, Christian Dior, Prada.. near the Spanish Steps...

VIA DEL CORSO - average shops selling men and womens clothing... great sales prices...

but watch out for the vendors who uses calculators instead of their registers. 2 experiences taught me to watch these vendors who will overprice your items.. They will show the total of your merchandise in their calculator but as you do your own calculation, there is an extra 20-30 euros added in the total, especially if you will purchase several items in their store (155euro up get the value added tax back after exiting italy - VAT credit for non Euro nations only)...

one shop selling souvenir sweatshirts (GOAL, name of store) charged me 30 euro on top of my merchandises. I bought 6 sweatshirts/tshirts, totallin 313 euros. When I got to my hotel, I added my purchases and they total 283 euros only. I had to go back and ask for my 30 euro back. I took pictures of my purchases using my camera fone and had to prove to the vendor/owner what I got and my calculations. She said "impossible" but later gave me another shirt worth 30euro....

another incident with FIORENTINO (store name) was when i was buying leather merchandises - i saw that the vendor added another 20euros to my puchases when she did the calculation (using a calculator)... but I wasnt able to go back to retrieve my money because it was out of area...

Lesson: These vendors probably thought I am a tourist in a tourist bus (wherein these "asian" tourists were just dropped off in the area) and will never come back to retrieve their money - & if they do retrieve their money, they will just give credit... if not, the money is theirs to keep.

Theme: Women's Clothes