The New XiangYang Market Shanghai

The infamous XiangYang Market on HuaiHai Rd. in Shanghai closed last year. It was a spot heavily traversed by foreigners looking for good deals on some pirated goods. For those of us that have been living here, it was a bit of a nuisance because everyone knows that when you pass by that area, you're likely to be harassed by sales people trying to make a buck off of a gullible foreigner.

It's been mostly moved over to a new area called TaoBao market which is on NanJing Rd. This move has been a huge improvement as the salespeople are mostly confined to a mall area and are not free to harass the innocent passersby. The shops are all neatly contained in glass cubicles instead of the makeshift tent-stalls that they used to be in. I walked through the area without anything more than the usual cries of "watch, DVD, bag" as I moved along the halls.

I passed on one store where I decided to take a look. I didn't have any intention to buy anything and nor did I really want or need anything that anyone is selling. I did however, leave with a pair of sunglasses, a pair of polarized Oakley rip-offs, that were actually quite nice in comparison with the usual load of crap that they were selling.

I started out looking at another pair of rip-offs that started at $220, but even a cursory look showed that the imitation was of very low quality. The lenses were scratched and the paint was uneven. I pointed this out to the sales person and they kept lowering the price. I then told him I wasn't really interested and attempted to move on. I guess he decided to pull out the big guns when he reached into the drawer for his best pair of glasses.

He demonstrated that they were polarized lenses, which I was skeptical about, but I don't see how he could have faked it. There was this little cube which looked like it was stamped with a circuit board. Looking at it through the "polarized" lenses, I could see what looked like two circular magnets. I tested it myself with the polarized and non-polarized lenses and it passed. So I inquired as to the price. This pair was $360 kuai.

That was just way too much to even consider and I really didn't want to spend money. To make a long story short, I got the pair for $60 kuai. I guess there are three major things to keep in mind while bargaining with these guys and those would be:

1. Don't go in there wanting anything at all, and don't show any real interest; if anything, show a reluctance to spend your money
2. The markup on any first price is at a minimum of 400% and that might be a low estimate
3. When you're walking away the price shoots downward so definitely walk away once or twice; there are plenty of other shops selling the same stuff