Italy Travel Forum

Has anyone found that the prices quoted at this store (recommended by tour comapnies) are twice as high as the shops around town. One of our group was looking at a decanter and glasses with tray for $1900, did not buy, went down the street and the exact same salesman as from the Vecchia Murano Factory sold him the same set for 1/2 the price..
please advise bob Reply to robert.kinghorn@netzero.com

You are paying way over the odds at Vecchia Murano. Their showroom near Piazza San Marco doesn't come cheap, and the high costs are simply passed on to customers.
If you want to buy Murano glass, then go to Murano. We have picked up several nice items from different manufacturers and have always haggled for a good price.

Surely one expects goods in all shops/factories etc offered as part of organised tours (or recommended by tour agencies), wherever they may be, to be over-priced? That is certainly my experience. There is commission involved, of course.

It's not sharp practice, imo: it's the way of the capitalist world. If people don't buy then prices will drop. Clearly people do buy at that price. And presumably there is no compulsion whatsoever to do so.

There may well be pressure to buy (though that, in my experience, is easy enough to resist). There is, however, no compulsion (that is, no-one actually makes you buy on pain of death/or they will abandon you/refuse to take you on to the next stop).

People choose to take tours, and they can also choose whether to buy at inflated prices or not. It is, ultimately, their money and their choice.

At the end of the day its up to the individual what they are prepared to pay BUT in the UK we have lots of TV programmes about antiques: Murano glass seems to be hardly worth the sand used in the manufacture!

As I've said on my 'tourist trap' entry about Venice, the further you go from the tourist areas the cheaper the price!