Natal Shopping

Tens of fast food restaurants, tens of qualified shops and playground area for kids. Don't wait low prices unless it's not a discount time (I think that during carneval time you can wait sale).

And on the parking hall you can find a money exchange with no comission and reasonable rates.

In this shopping center you can find all local craft from Natal. The building has 4 floors if I'm not mistaken. There are stores selling t-shirts and hats from Natal, mugs, local craft, bikinis, "Havaianas", gems and stones, postcards and a lot more. You can always try to bargain and lower the price (I've been successful a few times).

You can find a wide variety of bikinis in the malls, in the Potiguar handicraft shopping and there are vendors in the beach that sell them too. Usually the sellers are helpful and show you much more bikinis than those that are in exposition.

Malls: Praiashopping has a handful of shops selling bikinis, Midway Mall is enormous (couldn't explore the whole thing), Natal Shopping is kind of poor in bikini shops (and the ones that sell them are more expensive).

Shops: I remember this shop, Romance, because it had the nicest sellers and a huge variety of bikinis. You can find it in Praia Shopping (smaller store) and Midway Mall (bigger store).

What to buy: If there's one thing women must buy in Natal, it's the bikinis! Well, for me it's a "must buy", because here in Portugal I would pay 4 or 5 times more for a bikini than in Natal.

Besides the low price and variety, buying bikinis in Natal has another advantage: you can buy the top and bottom parts separately. That way you can mix sizes (S, M and L sizes correspond to P, M and G respectively) and colors.

What to pay: In my opinion: cheap bikinis = 30R$-40R$ (top+bottom parts) (around 13-17€)

As in every beach in Brazil (not at almost deserted beaches of course) you will find beach vendors, so in Ponta Negra too.
But there are not as much beach vendors as in other touristic places, like for example in Copacabana beach in Rio, where you will have not any minute without someone wanting to sell something. Uhh, that sucks, people...:-(

This beach vendor here in Ponta Negra at the photo sell "cangas" which cost around 10 or 15 Reais, if you bargain around 5-8 Reais and which are a fantastic present at home!

What to buy: Here at Ponta Negra beach you can buy (from the beach vendors or the "barracas" on the beaches ) something to drink or eat, a canga, swimsuit, sunglasses, etc. for less than in every other place I saw before!
Try to bargain a little bit, and you will get it more cheap!

Natal Shopping is a Modern Indoor Mall type shopping plaza w/ multiple floors and a huge number of shops, food court, movie theatre etc. Like everything else in Brazil, the prices are excellent on all goods with the exception of Gold and Electronics! Americans will be pleasantly surprised by such an US-esque type shopping center here.

Also try Praia shopping for a smaller atmosphere mall closer to the beach.

Both are great!

What to buy: Crystal and handmade crsytal figures -beautifully crafted and less than 1/2 what you might pay in the US for the same goods.

Clothes are beautiful and very cheap.

Shoes - of course - Brazil makes tons of shoes for the entire world.. get them in the source country and save a bundle.

What to pay: The american dollar and euro remain strong so everything is cheap cheap cheap!

In the centre of Natal the "Centro de Turismo" offers a big variety of souvenir shops for tourists. They have all those things you will see throughout Brazil and some very nice pieces you can only find here.
Adress:
CENTRO DE TURISMO DE NATAL
Rua Aderbal Figueiredo, 980 - Petrópolis - Natal / RN
CEP: 59010-780 - Tel.:(084)211-6218

Caprihina is the national drink of Brazil, and if you want to make one when you come home, buy a bottle when you are in Brazil. The price is for a bottle is so low....just about 1 Euro/$

What to buy: ..there is a lot of different brands for this spirit, but in our opinion this was the best one when we asked the staff in the supermareket what to buy( and now when Caprihina is a popular drink in Europe, the one you see...is Pitu)

Besides the fruits you can find some grab sellers. I didn't ask the price but think they are cheap (as standard in market place, 1 R$ each sounds good).