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Metro Manila / Shopping / Markets

Markets vary only a little from one another. The center is generally a hall or wide building, a great part of which is the wet section where meats, fowl, and seafood are sold. In and around the hall, many vegetable and fruit dealers can be found. There are always some grocery stores around the markets which often also stock kitchenware and household products. In nearby side streets there are hardware and auto supply stores.

Big markets often have a very wide selection of clothing whereas at the smaller markets, clothing is scant.

It is possible to bargain at traditional markets. In modern stores, it is also possible to ask for and to get discounts for items which cost a few hundred pesos or more.

At the market, the customer has the best chance to bargain if he goes in the early morning. Vendors take a good early sale as a positive sign for the rest of the day, and therefore are often willing to give a good discount. The term explaining this attitude is buena mano, coming from Spanish and literally meaning "good hand" or "lucky hand."

Fixed prices are often only a formality. For example, hardware or households products bought at a market have, below the so called fixed price, a fixed discount price (often called the last price) which is readily available to those who ask for it.

Stores will generally give a discount of 20 to 30 %. Wandering street vendors, on the contrary, will first offer prices which are three or four times as high as one would pay in a store and one may therefore start to bargain by offering 20 % of the amount first demanded by the vendors.

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