Information on how to shop and what to buy when travelling in India

India is a fabulous place to shop. Roaming the local bazaars can be a delightful experience. They are colorful, noisy, and filled to overflowing with wonderful items and interesting people. The local bazaars where Indian shop is usually more charming—not to mention much cheaper—than the tourist markets. You can get just about anything you can imagine, and many more things besides. It's just a matter of knowing where to look.

At the other extreme are high-end shopping malls where you'll typically pay Western prices (or more) for imported goods or foreign brands. Many of the foreign brands are actually made in India, so you can sometimes buy the same items at a fraction of the price in the local markets. Export rejects can be found in certain local markets (e.g., Sarojini Nagar in Delhi) for almost nothing—and since sometimes the only reason these items were rejected was because the delivery was too late or the color was a little off, it is possible to get designer goods at far less than discount store prices. Really good Western-style clothes are otherwise a bit hard to come by as the Indian designers generally don't have a very subtle understanding of how they are made. 

Sometimes, if a merchant doesn't have what you want, he may tell you the item is "unavailable anywhere" or that it is "impossible." Most often, if you continue asking around, you will find what you need somewhere, especially if you are in a big city. Small towns are another matter altogether. In some cases, of course, you may need to do quite a lot of asking. 

Most cities, towns and villages (or clusters of villages) have a weekly or monthly street market where you can buy fruits, vegetables, spices, house-wares, clothes, etc. The weekly markets are always held on the day the regular shops are closed. Usually they are most crowded later in the evening. Just ask anyone where and when the markets are held in your area. Small towns and villages also have an annual mela (festival) that is a much larger outdoor market that is usually set up in a big field in or near town. The local markets and melas are where you will find the cheapest prices available anywhere, so there's often not much leeway for bargaining. Also Visit – India travel packages

In the Himalayas you can buy any woolens you will need if you are there during the cold season, and the prices are incredibly cheap. Kashmir is famous for pashmina, which is another name for cashmere. Be aware, however, that fine wool or other fibers are often passed off as pashmina. Shahtush is much finer even than pashmina, but it comes from the Himalayan Ibex, an endangered species, and the animal is killed to obtain it, so buying it in India or importing it into most countries is illegal unless you have proof that it was produced before the ban. The penalty for smuggling it into the US is 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, and other countries have similar penalties. 

Many merchants claim to offer the required proof, but there are so many shahtush shawls on the market these days that were "woven before it was banned" that it's safe to assume that many of the certificates are forged, or else the shawls aren't genuine shahtush. In fact, most of what is now sold as shahtush is not shahtush. Shahtush is the fabric used in the original "ring shawls," i.e., shawls that can pass through a wedding ring, but pashmina and even wool can be spun so finely now that the expression "ring shawl" means nothing.

The finest pashmina is exceptionally soft and light and is a good alternative to genuine shahtush. It's also a much better buy. Similar names such as shamina and pashtush have been coined as marketing ploys. Some of these fabrics are honestly marketed for what they are (which is usually extremely finely woven pashmina, though it may be mixed with some other fiber), but many aren't. If you are determined to own a genuine shahtush, insist on a written guarantee that it is old and that it is genuine shahtush. Even so, you may be fooled into paying extremely high prices (many thousands of dollars) for a relatively cheap imitation. All the Kashmiri merchants claim that their shawls are the finest, but genuine shahtush is so rare and costly that most of them probably haven't ever seen and held one. 

Antiquities can't be taken out of India if they are over 100 years old without an export clearance certificate from the Archaeological Survey of India. Antiques will be confiscated if you are caught taking or sending them out of India, and you could be fined or even jailed for smuggling as well, so you should insist that the merchant get the export clearance certificate on anything that looks like it could be an antique before you pay for it. 

Export of endangered plants or animals, or any items obtained from them—including ivory, hides, furs, antlers, claws, potions made from rhino horns, etc.—are also prohibited. There are also restrictions on exporting firearms, gold, gold jewelry and certain other items. 

Avoid buying counterfeit and pirated goods, which are widely available. These goods include books, electronics, designer clothing, sporting goods, watches, DVDs, luggage, etc. Counterfeits are usually pretty easy to spot by the misspellings, poor quality of the item, generally unpolished look or blurry printing on tags and packaging, etc.—in other words, there is almost always something about them that looks or feels cheap. Bringing these items back to the United States or other countries could result in confiscation of the goods as well as fines. 

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