Turkey is an amazing country to visit, but it has the most aggressive street vendors in the world.
As you are walking through the streets of Istanbul or Urgup (Cappadocia), you are approached by extremely pushy men urging you to come into their shops to buy whatever. You might not see a problem with that, since you are in vacation, but once you decide to get in, they wouldn’t let you go until you buy something.
Literally, they are no shy of standing in front of you in the door – especially if you are a woman – and pushing you back to purchase an item. “Please, please, buy, buy – discount, discount!”.
Oftentimes they even become physical. You are not in North America, so don't think you can’t sue for harassment, for any touch you get. We are not kidding; the Internet forums are jam-packed with traveler complaints on this topic.
However, if you actually consider getting some memorabilia anyway, the Turkish merchants will have two kinds of prices: one for locals, one for foreigners.
How to avoid: if you decide to get in the shop, just be ready for a serious one-on-one. Never pay the asking price. If they are aggressive salesmen like they prove to be, they should handle a little bit of negotiation, don’t they? If you want to buy something, try to negotiate in Turkish Lira, otherwise they will convert it at a rate 20% higher than the current. As a rule of thumb, in any country you visit you should ALWAYS have local petty cash when deciding to check the street markets.
Be also aware of the Turkish carpet salesmen scam. They are hundreds of them around Istanbul. They would invite you in to show you a “125-year old rug”, which is actually 18-year old. Indeed, there are legitimate carpet dealers, since Turkey is well known for their beautiful rugs, but without proper word-of-mouth and a real certificate is almost impossible to detect which one is which. The best thing to do is to research everything you can before you get there, so you would know how to recognize a fake.