I am off to Hong Kong for a week and was interested in buyng a digital camera. Are prices cheaper there than in North America for cameras and general electronic items??

Thanks everyone Mike

The short answer is no. North America has very good prices. Out of curiosity we checked out some camera stores in Hong Kong last Oct & compared what we had paid in the US and we paid much less than we saw the same stuff for in Hong Kong.
Happy Travels
J

Generally there are more choices in Hong Kong and new models become available sooner. Prices, however, aren't much cheaper than North America. If you know exactly what you want to buy, research for the best price you can get at home and bring it along for comparison. Keep in mind the model name/number for the same item may be different in Hong Kong. Buy from reputable shops to avoid scams.

Don't buy it there. On top of the reasons already mentioned, most camera manfacturer's service centers here in the US will not provide warranty work for cameras bought elsewhere.

Accessories, on the other hand, can be relatively cheap.

Are there shops in Hong Kong with set prices? I hate to "gamble"... going back/forth on the prices. I feel I'll get rip off even if I get a lower price. I'm interested in buying a couple of furniture pieces (like a console, an armoire or a table) for my foyer. Looking for something interesting w/ engraving, typically chinese, not necesarily an antique. Any reputable shop recommendation that will ship the pieces.

There are shops with fixed prices. Note that shipping is very expensive and will cost at least as much as you pay for the furniture.

Thanks Kathie. Still with the freight cost I hope I'll find something unique. Which direction to go to find those shops? Just wander around & see them from the street?

I live in Hong Kong and have bought a lot of furniture here, both antique and new, and have had several pieces made. This is an excellent place to buy antique or reproduction furniture, and to have furniture custom-made to your design and specifications. Prices are very good and quality of custom work is excellent. In general, the reputation of antique dealers is very good so you can be reasonably sure that that 18th century cabinet is indeed 18th century. Having said that, there are some things to consider:

1. First do a LOT of shopping at home to see prices. It is relatively easy to find Asian-style furniture in the US these days, check the internet or the yellow pages. These places buy and ship in bulk and get very good prices.

2. If you live in a place with seasons, i.e., winter or a hot summer where you will have air conditioning on, your wood furniture will most likely dry out and develop cracks over time, and cracks could be major or in very visible places that ruin the look of the piece. Most of Asia is quite humid and the wood absorbs a lot of water, and when you move it to an environment which is not humid, it starts to dry out. I lived in Switzerland for a few years between postings to Hong Kong, and several of my antique pieces cracked quite badly. Teak in particular seems susceptible. This is another reason to buy at home, as the pieces will have had some time to adjust and badly cracked pieces either won’t be for sale, or you can ask for a guarantee/return if the piece cracks within the first 12 months. Some places in Asia will tell you they can “treat” the wood in a special room for a few weeks; I have not yet seen that this works well, esp if you live in a place that has low humidity all year long. If you buy new pieces, i.e. reproduction or custom-made you will have a better chance of few cracks, as older antique pieces have just had longer time to absorb more water over time.

3. Shipping is quite expensive.; Figure paying the same as the purchase cost of the item to ship it. Make sure you arrange for point to point shipping, which means it will be delivered to your home and not to the nearest dock. Bargain quite hard on the purchase price and tell them that as you have to ship it, your purchase price has to be lower.

4. Let the store you buy from arrange the shipping and pay by credit card; that way the store has an investment in making sure the item arrives. Arranging commercial shipping by yourself is not easy and is generally more expensive, and I have had some bad experiences with it (as opposed to having the store ship, where things turned up every time).

5. You will mostly likely have to pay customs duty on it when it arrives in the US (I assume you live there), as items you do not actually carry back with you are not included in your US$800 per person Customs exemption. There is an exemption for some handicraft items. The Customs Service website may give info take a look at customs.ustreas.gov; otherwise the shipper receiving the item in the US will assess the customs duty and you will pay it as a condition to having the item delivered to you.

6. Shipping to the US by boat takes between 3-6 weeks depending on where you buy it and where you need it delivered.

7. I am not sure I understand Kathie's message above, but in any furniture store in Hong Kong, you can and absolutely should bargain. There aren't any fixed price shops; department stores are fixed price for most things, but if I were buying a big ticket item like furniture I absolutely would ask for, and expect at least a small discount. In shops on Hollywood Road, you can bargain, but don't expect big discounts.

For places to look for furniture, some suggestions would be below:

1. Hollywood Road/Wyndham Street area in Central. This is a long road literally lined with antique shops. Some reputable antique shops include Honeychurch Antiques (29 Hollywood Road), Contes D'orient (26 Lyndhurst Terrace), Hobbs & Bishops (28 Hollywood Road), but any on this street would probably be fine. Most shops on Hollywood Road are closed on Sundays. Hollywood Road is the most expensive place to look for furniture, other than Atfield Gallery, see below. Not a lot of bargaining here. Stop in at Teresa Coleman Fine Arts (79 Wyndham Street) and look at here wonderful textile collection as well.

2. Another good place (albeit quite pricey) is the Prince's Building in Central at 10 Chater Road, quite near the Star Ferry pier and across the street from the Mandarin Hotel. There are a few shops here furniture, a very good one is Altfield Gallery.

Altfield Gallery
248-249 Prince's Bldg.
10 Chater Rd.
Phone: 2537-6370

3. An excellent source for furniture is the warehouse out near Aberdeen called Horizon Plaza. Shops are open every day, including Sundays (lots of expats out on Sundays). You can take a taxi from Central to this area in about 20 minutes, will cost about HK$200-250. (You could take a bus, a change or two would be required, the trip would take about an hour, ask your hotel.) There are about a dozen furniture shops here, including several that do custom work, like the marvelous Alyssa Liang. Get a printed directory from reception on the ground floor, it lists shops by category. The lifts in this building are quite slow, so have some patience. There is only one coffee shop in the building in the Shambala furniture store, so have a good breakfast or lunch before you go. All the shops will ship for you.

Horizon Plaza
2 Lee Hing Street
Ap Lei Chau, Hong Kong

Furniture shops I would recommend in particular:

Shambala 2nd floor (good quality, good Tibetan furniture, good rug selection)

Rhymba Rhyme, 5th floor (mostly Indonesian, but some very interesting pieces)

Dynasty Antiques, 4th and 20th floors (two shops, may have two names)

Alyssa Liang, 11th floor (simply gorgeous hand made furniture, clean-lined, she makes to order as well, she made me a beautiful four poster bed and other bedroom furniture)

The Birdcage, 22nd floor, (small selection but excellent, Clarence will also take orders for specific items if you describe what you want, and will then ship them on to you after he locates them from sources in the PRC, he has very good prices and does bargain)

Thank you for the wonderful information. But when you talk about new vs old related to cracking, did you mean that with OLD furniture you have less chance of it developing cracks?

Thanks everyone for your responses

Mike

To clarify (at least in my experience), furniture cracks because of low humidity. Summer air-conditioning isn't usually the culprit (unless you live in a very dry climate like Arizona). Winter heating is usually the problem, as the air in your home in the winter heating season is VERY dry - even in rainy Seattle - drier than desert air.

The older the furniture, the more likely it has survived many seasons of expanding and contracting. Nonetheless, even an old piece that has "lived" in a tropical climate for a long time may crack when brought to a low humidity indoor environment.

Cicerone, I agree that I would always bargain. there are shops that say "fixed price" such as the Chinese department store (whose name I'm forgetting) in Kowloon. I have gotten discounts even there. For someone who is afraid of bargaining, looking at a place like that can give them an idea of what something is worth.

I also really agree that one should see what you can buy at home. We have several excellent stores with antique Chinese furniture here in Seattle, and I'd pay much less here than in Hong Kong, as their purchase and shipping costs are less.

With regard to cracking, I can only tell you of my experience. I lived in Singapore for about 5 years and Hong Kong for about 5 years and bought a goodly bit of new and old furniture. When I moved to Switzerland for 4 years, only my old pieces cracked; the new wood furniture held up better. My assumption was that it had not had the chance to soak up as much moisture over the years.

Katie I think you are referring to Chinese Arts and Crafts on Salisbury Road in Kowloon. They don't have very much furniture however. They do have some of that mother of pearl inlay furniture, mostly chairs, but otherwise do not have much in the way of cabinets or consoles. You would need to go to Hollywood Road or Horizon Plaza.

One more place to wander is Queens Road East in Wan Chai. However, much of this is much more modern design (esp Italian modern which is very popular here), although there are a few more traditional carved wooden Chinese furniture shops interspersed here. Start out from the JW Marriott and walk along Queen's Road East toward the Hopewell centre, you will find a cluster just past the new office tower called Pacific Place 3. Note that most of these shops are closed on Sundays.