Kumasi trades in things made by hand. Three days take you from Bantama's fabric-and-enamelware aisles and Adum's wax print houses out to the Ashanti craft villages north of the city, where kente is woven, adinkra stamped and stools carved to order.
Bantama's covered market trades from 06:00 to 18:00 in enamelware, calabash bowls, raw shea butter and alata black soap sold by weight. Woven raffia baskets start near GH₵40 and hand-dyed cotton runs cheaper than the central market.
Kumasi's second-hand clothing market, where imported bales are cut open around midday and the best pieces vanish within the hour. Denim, vintage tees, leather bags and shoes go for GH₵10–60, and haggling in Twi is part of the deal.
Kumasi's carpentry quarter: dozens of open-front workshops working odum, sapele and mahogany into stools, chopping boards, carved doors and beds. Small Ashanti stools sell for GH₵80–250 and carvers will cut a custom piece in a day or two.
The formal retail core around Prempeh II Street: Melcom's department store, gold and bead jewellers, tailoring shops and fabric houses stacked three deep. Wax print is sold by the six-yard piece and most shutters come down by 19:00.
Opened in 2017 on Lake Road, this is the largest mall outside Accra — around 17,000m² and 68 units, air-conditioned and open 09:00 to 21:00 daily. Woodin, Shoprite, phone shops and Ghanaian labels sit around a food court and cinema.
The older Adum shopping centre, anchored by Palace Hypermarket on the ground floor with small upper-level units selling phone accessories, cosmetics, watches and school uniforms. Loud, cheap and busiest on Saturday afternoons.
Ghana Textiles Printing and Akosombo Textiles retail through the fabric houses along Adum's main lanes. Real Ghanaian wax print is sold in six-yard pieces; check the selvedge stamp to tell it from cheaper imported copies.
Ahodwo, south-west of the centre around the roundabout, is Kumasi's upscale quarter: independent fashion boutiques, kente-trimmed ready-to-wear, jewellery counters and dressmakers working from small first-floor studios.
Bonwire, 18km north-east of Kumasi, is the kente village that clothed the Asantehene's court. Weavers work narrow double-heddle looms in open sheds, joining four-inch strips; a full twelve-strip man's cloth takes weeks of work.
Five kilometres on from Bonwire, Adanwomase runs a community-owned weaving tour and shop with posted, fixed prices. Quieter than Bonwire: you can sit at a loom and weave a few rows before buying strips, scarves or table runners.
At Ntonso on the Mampong road, adinkra symbols are stamped onto cotton with carved calabash blocks and badie bark dye boiled down on site. Choose your symbols — gye nyame, sankofa — print your own cloth, then buy yardage and stamps.
Ahwiaa, 9km north on the Mampong road, is a near-continuous kilometre of carvers' stalls working soft sese wood: Ashanti stools, akuaba fertility dolls, walking sticks, drums and masks, with prices opening around GH₵50.