Kathmandu shopping splits three ways: medieval trade squares where you haggle by the handful, fair-trade cooperatives with tagged prices, and Patan workshops where the maker is standing behind the counter. This route covers all three.
Six lanes converge on this 800-year-old market square where Newar traders sell cardamom, saffron, dried fish and brass measures from 05:00 to 20:00. Buy loose spices by the tola; vendors weigh on hand-held balances.
The bead balcony above Indra Chowk is where Muslim potey traders string glass beads into married women's necklaces. Choose your colours by the bundle, then have them threaded on the spot and finished with a gold-plated tilhari clasp.
Nepal's first shopping complex opened on New Road in 1970 and still stacks five floors of gold jewellers, sari fabric and electronics. Compare its fixed-price counters against the open haggling on Sukra Path outside.
Thamel's pashmina shops off Chaksibari Marg stay open until 21:00. Genuine 70/30 cashmere-silk shawls carry a Chyangra Pashmina trademark hologram; a burn test on a stray thread should smell of hair, not melting plastic.
A Jhamsikhel townhouse stocking around 40 Nepali labels — block-printed dhaka jackets, lokta paper stationery, hemp totes and small-batch ceramics. Open 10:00–19:00, closed Mondays. Prices are tagged and fixed.
A pedestrianised courtyard lane behind Jhamel's restaurant strip, lined with independent studios, a ceramics shop and a bookshop-café. Good for felt slippers and hand-thrown Thimi pottery between lunch stops.
The retail arm of the Association for Craft Producers sells work by roughly 1,000 women artisans — dhaka weaving, ceramics, felted wool, allo nettle fibre. On Kupondole road, 10:00–18:00. Fixed prices, no bargaining.
Pulchowk's glass-fronted mall runs six floors of Nepali streetwear labels, a basement supermarket and a rooftop food court open until 21:00. Useful for seeing what Kathmandu's own shoppers buy rather than tourist stock.
Patan's Mahaboudha and Oku Bahal lanes hold lost-wax foundries where Shakya families cast copper and gilt statues by hand. Workshops open 09:00–17:00 and most let you watch the chasing and polishing benches.
A 1983 training school for Pode community families with an on-site shop of hand-knitted wool sweaters, socks and carpets. Walk through the spinning and dyeing yards behind the Kumbeshwar temple pond before you buy.
Founded in 1960 for Tibetan refugees, the weaving hall still knots wool carpets at 60 to 100 knots per square inch. Watch the looms and the carding room, then buy from the showroom; sea freight is arranged in-house.
The boulevard running south from the old palace gate is Kathmandu's fixed-price end: Nepali fashion houses, gem dealers, and cafés with terraces. Most shops close between 19:00 and 20:00, earlier than Thamel.