Hong Kong Shopping – Part 3 – Outlets & Bargains

There are heaps of outlets in Hong Kong – think Prada, Kate Spade, Samsonite and the like.Today we rundown on how we found the outlet stores!

Outlets & Bargains

Hong Kong Island

We hit Harbour Plaza in Ap Liu Chiu , which is only reached by taking a Taxi (which will cost around 12-15AUD) to visit the Lane Crawford and Joyce Warehouses. If you’re not overly keen on either of these, its probably not worth the visit to Ap Lei Chua since the rest of the plaza is filled with home wares stores, which looked interesting but are not exactly suitcase friendly.

Lane Crawford was pretty decent – imagine a warehouse full of racks of clothes willy nilly, then add high end designer labels to those clothes. Notable finds were Cheap Monday Jeans for $45AUD,  a Juicy Dress I’ve been eyeing off for months (alas, too small) and what was officially crowned the Bargain Of the Trip – Missoni Heels for $85AUD (right). I thought our poor little shopper hearts were going to pass out from excitement at this point. There are heaps of clothes here and a fairly decent selection of shoes. The bags, whilst nice, were still fairly pricey – e.g. Canvas Chloe Edith’s for $1500AUD, Chloe Bay Bags also $1500 and Marc Jacobs Quilted Totes (kinda like the Stam Quilting) for $1000AUD. They also had Gryson Bags, Chloe Paddington Wallets.

The Joyce Warehouse was, in my view, totally average and not worth a visit. The maximum discount I saw was 50% off the full price, and its quite small compared to Lane Crawford. One thing you must do if you visit Harbour Plaza is go and visit the Sift Patisserie on the 22nd Floor. Hands Down, the best cupcakes I have ever had in my life. And, as we discovered, you can buy extra, lug them around in the heat for the rest of your days shopping and they still look and taste fabulous. I totally recommend the Red Velvet and Coconut Chocolate Cupcakes, the macaroons were gorgeous and tasted yummy too.

The Space (Prada & Miu Miu) Warehouse is also a hop skip away from Harbour Plaza, however we didn’t take the time to visit as internet research suggested it was not really worth it, and there was nothing Prada I’ve been eyeing off.

The other place on Central that we spent a lot of time in is the Pedder Building. Its located pretty much right near The Landmark Shopping Centre and is filled with little stores that have factory over-runs and knock off designer clothing. Don’t ask me how you tell the difference on what’s real and what’s not, I had no idea (and being a size 12, I did struggle to fit into a lot of the items, if you are a size 10 or below you will be fine) but it’s more dressier items that in Fa Yuen St. My best buy was an Ann Taylor double breasted coat in a vibrant pink for $25. It was funny to come across some Alice McCall, Kitten and the like (also for around the $25AUD mark) to make you realise who gets what done in China. There are six floors to the pedder building, and my recommendation is to take the lift up to the top and then work your way down via the stairs – those lifts were ridiculously slow.

Lantau Island

We also checked out the Citygate Outlets on Lantau Island after returning from the Tian Tan Buddha – amazing, totally worth the visit. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for Citygate. It sounds fantastic – 7 for all Mankind Outlet, Kate Spade Outlet etc etc….but it was very meh. It was a lot like the DFO stores in Australia, a few legit outlets and then lots of stores pretending to be outlets with one section of sale items and the rest current season at full price. The 7 for all Mankind outlet did have 3 pairs of jeans for $150AUD, but however hard we tried we just couldn’t find three pairs of decent jeans. The only place we made any purchases from here was the IT Warehouse, which also has a Kowloon store. I really only recommend Citygate if you are already on Lantau Island.

Kowloon

The aforementioned IT Warehouse Store is located in Silvercord , right near Harbour City Shopping Centre. On my hitlist was A.P.C, which I adore, and it was all 60% off the RRP – however the stock was a bit average so I only walked away with one top. The thing with the IT Warehouse is that you have to be prepared to wade through a lot of stuff to find the good things. We found the clothing to be better at Citigate, but the shoes were better at Silvercord. Notable purchases were Cacharel heels for $45AUD, a See by Chloe tee for $50AUD and my A.P.C shirt for $80AUD. The one good thing about both IT Stores is that the clothing is organised by brands in alphabetical order, so its pretty easy to find your favourite brands. Whilst in Silvercord do also visit Din Fa Tai Fung Dumpling restaurant – they were yummy!

Shenzhen

Shenzhen is about 20 minutes by MTR from Hong Kong and where, so I am told, all the Hong Kong ladies go to shop. I’ve heard alternating things about Lo Wu – some people love it, some people loathe it, but we were keen to try it out – especially the jewellery bazaar. Unfortunately the Visa rules have changed and you can no longer get a Visa at the border. I believe this has something to do with the Olympics, so my recommendation is to either get a Visa at home is Australia, or make sure you leave enough time to get one in Hong Kong (it’s a minimum of 2 working days, and you need your passport, outgoing flight tickets and a separate passport photo), which we didn’t do. If you don’t have a Visa, you can still get out of Hong Kong but will be turned back at the Chinese Border and then need to be re-processed back into Hong Kong, which is just time consuming (and does fill your passport up with pretty little ‘cancelled’ stamps).

Overall, I really enjoyed Hong Kong, and will be heading back for more in the future. My tips are to wear comfortable shoes, take a tape measure around with you (damn those ‘No Fitting’ signs) and take a backpack around with you to carry all your shopping – those bags get heavy after awhile! To the right to can see part of our haul (this is with a day and half to go, where I substantially increased my shoe purchases).

Another idea is to put together a hit list of shops you must visit – it can be a little overwhelming and it wasn’t til I got  home I realised I had missed H&M Kids for my niece!