Dam Square Area, Amsterdam

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Hogendoorn & Kaufman is a shop with crockery, glass, crystal and china fo sale.
Top brands like Fabergé, Meissen and Lomonosov and Delft & Makkum Pottery are available.
Both classic and modern designs for sale.

What to pay: Top prices

't Japanse Winkeltje is a nice shop with many Japanese items, like kimono's, rice paper etc on sale.
The building also house the Japanese Cultural Center.
There are several workshops and language courses.

Business Hours:
Tu-Sa:

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Open Shop is located in the heart of Amsterdam "Centrum", near the Dam. It sells clothing made by Dutch designers Each day a designer is in the shop to help you with your purchases. Prices are very affordable for unique pieces.
They also sell a lot of fair trade clothing.

What to buy: Their dresses are great, and the handmade "Wolboots" are amazing. The accessories are a lot of fun as well.

What to pay: Dresses are about €60-€100 euro's, tops are about €30-€50 euro's and they have a wide range of accessories that are cute and sometimes even hilarious. Great for presents as well. These accessories are also very affordable (€5,00 for a cute ring with Pac Man on it and €32,50 for a necklace with a bird in a cage)
They have great high heeled shoes by label Iron Fist (€65-€99) and handmade leather bags (€60-€200).

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That long pedestrian street where you could find the McDonalds (also housed one of the most popular public toilet for EUR0.50 in the area aside from of course being a fastfood resto) and other fastfood stands and like Subway and other local ones - is a very popular shopping street.

If you're like me who normally goes on light during travels bringing only about 3 shirts and 2 pants cuz I know am going to shop for clothes later - well, good news - this shopping street has a lot of stores both local and international brands like C&A and that store I think New York where I bought lots of shirts as I ran out of something to wear already costing from EUR5 up, pants at EUR29 up.

It's that street at the Dam Square right beside the famous coffeeshop also beside the Nieuwe Kerk or "new church" which is again near the Royal Palace.

Of course aside from this street you'll find several other shopping streets and malls around the city.

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The main street of Damrak leads from Dam Square to Centraal Station. It'll take ten minutes to walk at a slow pace and along the way you will have an option on several things. The boats luring people for boat tours, the sex museum, the new Vodka Museum a few doors away, several hotels, shops selling mostly tourist tack. All this and more... don't forget to dodge the traffic which should all be going toward the station as its a one-way street.

De Bijenkorf is the most upscale department store in the Netherlands. Compared to US it is probably just below Bloomindale's and more upscale than Macy's.

It is a very good place to shop for dress shirts, tie, shoes, watches and house decorations. Part of the fun is a lot of the products are really European/Dutch so they also make good gifts.

Inside the building there's a restaurant, La Ruche, that is also a very good place to eat.

Prices are of course on the steeper side, but the clothes that you get there has a lot of European 'flavour', different from what you get in Los Angeles. I would recommend that you pay a visit, even if you don't buy anything. Their flagship store is located at the Dam, so chances are you will be in the area anyway :)

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I'm not labling this as a Sex Shop because in spite of the fact that it sells.....shall we call them "toys", it also sells cards, knick knacks, hats 'n boas, etc. We acted like kids and dressed up and posed and took photos until we were asked to kindly stop by the store clerk.

Oops.

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De Bierkoning is a shop that concentrates on one thing: BEER!

There are at least 950 different beer brands on stock and 300 beer-glasses of all kind.

Business hours:
Mo: 1PM - 7PM
Tu-Fr: 11AM - 7PM
Sa: 11AM - 6PM
Su: 1PM - 6PM

What to buy: BEER!

What to pay: If you spend more than 10 Euro's you can get a free beer bottle opener.

While we were strolling around Amsterdam we came upon this huge building in Dam Square. I was't to sure what it was and upon my return home I did some research and found out that this building is a department store along the lines of Gallerie Lafayette in Paris.

Things to buy in Amsterdam: Chocolate, T-shirts, wooden shoes, french fries with mayo (yummy!), heineken beer, funky boots and shoes.

What to pay: I found clothing to be a bit pricey compared to back home in Canada, escpecially when factoring the exchange rate.