In Reply to: Watches posted by forbesclan on Saturday, 22. February 2014 at 20:12 Bali Time:
Sorry for the delayed response but my tablet keeps crashing. My advice is give the main streets a miss and concentrate on the slightly smaller ones. Garlic Lane is my favourite place. There is a store on the corner of the lane on the beach side. Ask for Mel Gibson. As to price I pay $4-5 for battery Rolex's ,CK and even some of the less fancy Rip Curl ones. I never go above $10 even for the top of the range Rip Curl, Billabong, U boat etc etc. I find weight is a pretty good guide. The heavier the watch ,the more I'll pay. I always think in dollars as its easier to see if I'm happy to pay the price. The only exception to the $10 rule is an automatic watch. They tend to start at $20 and the skys the limit. Having said that I have several automatic Rolexs that Ive had since 2007 and they're all still working. Womens watches start at about $2 and work their way up, but I would very rarely pay over $5. Dont be afraid to barter hard. I usually start around 10% of asking price and dont go over 25%. It seems cheeky but starting prices have increased 200% in the last few years. Volume also helps, the more you buy the cheaper it gets. An example would be a watch we normally buy for presents. Buy one and you might haggle down to $4 but buy 12 as we did and the price can drop to $2.50 with 16 batteries thrown in. All in all haggle happily, the Balinese dont seem to like aggressive people (and how many times am I embarrassed to be Australian when you see people swearing and treating the locals like idiots) enjoy a joke while you barter, make outrageous offers with a smile on your face but at the end of the day don't pay more than you want to and dont get carried away haggling over 20 c. Hope this helps