Shopping and haggling in China

Two things are true about shopping in China. The first is that the country makes almost everything, which means that anything you want is available, often in an alley behind your hotel, at a price lower than you would believe. The second is that a well-rehearsed tourist trade has grown up around the gap between what things cost and what visitors will pay for them.

This guide is about navigating both: where haggling is normal and where it is pointless, how to read an opening price, what China is genuinely good to buy, which classic purchases are a bad idea, and how the departure tax refund for foreign visitors actually works.

Where haggling works, and where it does not

Bargaining is a normal, expected part of buying in markets, tourist streets, small independent shops and stalls selling crafts, clothing, souvenirs and household goods. It is not a thing in supermarkets, chain stores, pharmacies, convenience shops, food markets, museum shops, brand boutiques or anywhere with a fixed price on a printed label.

Trying to haggle in a supermarket is not offensive exactly, but it is pointless in a way that marks you out immediately as a visitor. Equally, paying the first price in a tourist market is not rude, but you will be paying three to five times what the person next to you paid, and the vendor will know it.

• Haggle: markets, craft stalls, tourist streets, small independent clothing and luggage shops.
• Do not haggle: supermarkets, pharmacies, chains, food markets, brand stores, museum shops.
• Ask, politely, for a discount on a large purchase anywhere, including in fixed-price shops.
• Never accept the first price at an airport or a hotel gift shop; the markup is structural.

How to read an opening price

In a tourist market, the first price quoted is not a price, it is an opening bid, and the gap between it and a fair price is usually large: commonly five to ten times the amount the vendor expects to accept, and more for items with no recognisable reference price, such as jade or pearls. In a local market used by residents, the gap is much smaller, and haggling over food is a waste of everyone's time.

A useful way to calibrate is to walk the same street and ask the same question at four stalls before buying anything. You will learn the range within ten minutes, and the fourth vendor will give you a far more realistic number than the first, because they have seen you ask around.

A haggling method that actually works

Bargaining is a social exchange rather than a confrontation, and treating it as a negotiation with a counterpart rather than a fight gets better results. Keep it friendly, keep it short, and be genuinely willing to walk away, which is the only lever that consistently moves a price.

1. Ask the price, then look unimpressed but stay friendly. Ask a question about quality or another colour.
2. Offer around a quarter to a third of the opening price in a tourist market. Expect amused refusal.
3. Move up slowly in small steps, and stop where you actually want to buy.
4. Ask for their price, then counter with a specific number, not a range.
5. Be ready to walk out. If they call you back, you have found the price. If they do not, you were below it.
6. Once you have agreed a price, buy. Renegotiating after agreement is bad form and will end the deal.

A calculator, or the number pad on your phone, is the standard tool for this conversation and both sides use it happily. Just remember that the agreed number is final: the worst thing you can do in this exchange is agree a price and then ask for change on a different note.

What China is genuinely good to buy

The best souvenirs from China are the ones tied to a place and a craft rather than the ones that could have been manufactured anywhere. Regional specialities cost a fraction of what they cost abroad, they carry a story, and they do not break in a suitcase.

• Tea, bought at source: Longjing green in Hangzhou, pu'er cakes in Yunnan, oolong in Fujian.
• Silk and silk quilts from Hangzhou and Suzhou, cheaper and better than most export versions.
• Porcelain and celadon from Jingdezhen, the country's historic ceramics capital.
• Cloisonné and lacquerware, particularly from Beijing, durable and genuinely decorative.
• Calligraphy brushes, inkstones and paper from Huizhou and Beijing, excellent for artists.
• Chopsticks, paper cuts, wooden toys, embroidered textiles and regional textiles.
• Practical items: luggage, umbrellas, phone accessories and cold-weather clothing, all cheap.

The shopping stop, the factory visit and the invitation you should refuse

Two of the oldest routines in Chinese tourism are worth recognising. The first is the compulsory shopping stop: a stop on a group tour described as a cultural visit, a silk museum, a jade exhibition or a traditional medicine clinic, where a guide receives a commission on everything sold. A legitimate itinerary does not need to sell you anything, which is why the operator we work with states plainly that there are no compulsory shopping stops in the programme.

The second is the friendly invitation: a student who wants to practise English, a couple who suggest a tea ceremony, a family who offer to show you their art studio. The performance is warm, the tea is pleasant, and the bill at the end runs to several hundred yuan. If you did not choose the establishment and are not shown a price list, you are the product.

Silk, pearls, jade and tea: the four classic overpays

These four categories account for most of the money foreigners overpay in China, because none of them has a visible reference price. Silk is genuinely excellent and best bought in Hangzhou from a shop you chose. Pearls are farmed in Zhejiang and Hainan and are cheap at source, but the price in a tourist market bears no relation to quality.

Jade is the most dangerous purchase. The difference between imperial-grade jadeite and a treated or imitation stone cannot be judged by eye, and a certificate is worth only as much as the laboratory that issued it. If you want to buy jade, buy from an established store with a verifiable certificate, treat it as jewellery rather than investment, and be prepared to pay for the confidence.

Tea has its own trap: the weight. Prices quoted per fifty grams sound modest until you are handed a two-jin package. Decide the weight you want first, ask for the total for that weight, and watch the scale. Buying tea at the plantation in Longjing or in a Yunnan factory is both cheaper and better than buying it in a city arcade.

The departure tax refund for foreign visitors

Foreign visitors can claim back part of the consumption tax on larger purchases. Broadly, you need to buy in a store that participates in the tax-free scheme, spend above a minimum in a single store on a single day, keep the official refund form and the receipts, and take the goods out of the country unused within a set period, usually within three months of purchase.

The refund is claimed at the airport when you leave, at the tax-refund counter, before check-in if the officer wants to see the goods, so allow extra time. The amount recovered is roughly eleven per cent of the purchase price, after a small handling charge, and the goods must be in your luggage and unused. Rules and minimum amounts are subject to local published rules and change from time to time, so ask the shop for the current conditions when you buy.

Paying: cash, QR codes and cards

China is a QR-code economy. Alipay and WeChat Pay, both linked to an international card, cover almost everything from a metro ticket to a street stall to a museum entrance, and setting one up before you fly is the single most useful piece of preparation for a trip. Without it, you will be relying on cash in a country where change can be hard to find.

Cash still works and must be accepted as legal tender, but smaller vendors may not have change for a large note, and in a market a hundred-yuan note for an eight-yuan purchase will cause visible pain. International cards are accepted in hotels, department stores and larger restaurants, and almost nowhere else. Keep a few hundred yuan in small notes as a backup for the first day.

Shipping, customs and what not to bring home

Large purchases can be shipped by China Post or a courier, which is sensible for porcelain, furniture and anything bulky. Ask for the cost and the delivery time in writing, photograph the packaging, and keep the tracking number. Customs duty at home is your responsibility, and undervaluing a shipment on the form is not a small evasion: it can void your insurance if the parcel is lost.

Three categories to avoid entirely. Protected wildlife products, including ivory, certain furs, tortoiseshell and some traditional medicines, are illegal to import almost everywhere and carry serious penalties. Antiques may require export certification and genuine ones cannot be exported freely. And counterfeit branded goods can be confiscated and, in some countries, fined on entry, which is a poor way to end a trip.

Buying online, and the Taobao question

China's domestic online marketplaces, headed by Taobao and JD.com, sell everything at prices that make physical shops look absurd, and they deliver to a hotel reception within a day or two in the major cities. The barrier used to be payment, but international cards can now be linked to Alipay for some of these platforms, which has opened the door for visitors.

Practical caveats: the interfaces are mostly Chinese, sizes run small, and returns are effectively impossible once you have flown home. It works well for accessories, textiles and small electronics you can inspect before leaving; it works badly for anything you would want to return. If it arrives wrong, you own the mistake.

Done well, shopping in China is one of the pleasures of the trip: the tea shop where you taste before you buy, the market where a silversmith works at the back of the stall, the mill where the rice paper is still made by hand. Getting to those places rather than to the coached showroom is mostly a question of local knowledge, and it is one of the things ChinaTour.es, the English-language site of the JoyoTour group, arranges on request: a licensed English-speaking guide for the markets and workshops, with no compulsory shopping stops anywhere in the itinerary.