Other stores and markets
Wadatta Artisanal Market
For slightly different goods and no entry fee, try this great location for your craft purchases.
Katako Marché
An interesting cross between a super target, home depot, and an industrial complex. watch your pockets, but wander for cheap food, metal goods, wood, hardwares, magic ingredients gri-gri, etc. itâs also neat to watch the aluminum pots being poured.
grande marche
Market prices
Shirt material comes pre-cut and wrapped in a plastic bag, 1500-2000F for short sleeve manches courtes, 1.25 meters or 2000-2500F for long sleeve manches longes, 1.5 meters. You can get it non-pre-wrapped too.
Linen is 1000F/meter.
Satin ribbon that is about 1.5cm wide is 25F/yard.
Used socks are around 3 pairs for 1000F. New socks are around 400-450F each.
Menâs thrift-shop pants: 1,500F
Menâs pre-made shirts: 1,500F-2000F
Sunglasses are 500F for the all plastic models and 600F for the kind with a little metal accenting the plastic.
Cheap earrings from China: 100F or 150F.
One of West Africa's best, most diverse, and calmest big markets. The market spans a wide spectrum of objects for sale, from retail goods and packaged foods to wholesale boxes of imported goods to hot, fresh meals. Narrow, shaded, aisles in a grid pattern contain a mix of fabric, tailors, household goods, sports apparel, automotive parts, flip-flops, headscarves, baby clothes, and any manner of other goods. Goods and foods from around the country are offered for sale, and stalls offering imported items from West Africa and abroad are interspersed throughout.There's also a section devoted to handicrafts and traditional clothes, although other markets are as equally good or better to pick these. First constructed in 1950 and rebuilt in 1987 after a fire costing over 5 billion francs!, the Grand Market attracts an estimated 20,000 tourists a year. Unfortunately, an electrical fire burnt over 1500 of the stalls in May 2009.
fabric-buying
As in other parts of West Africa, Niamey has a good selection of bright colorful pagne fabrics. Each pagne is 2 meters and it is generally sold in 3-pagne sets in other words, 6 meters. Sometimes they will sell you either 1 pagne or two pagnes, but other times they will only sell in 3-pagne increments. There is a wide selection of pagnes 30 or more shops/stands just 1/2 block down the street from the Porte Principal of the Grande Marché. 90 percent of them in that section cost 5,000F for 3 pagnes. If you only want one pagne and they are willing to cut, it should cost 2,000F for just the one. If it is ENITEX brand made in Niger, it is a bit cheaper - 3 pagnes cost only 4,000F, or one for 1,500F. There are a few brands that are more than 5,000 7,000F, 12,500F and up especially from shops within the Grande Marché.