Fez is Morocco's craft capital and the best place in the country to buy quality handmade goods. The medina is divided into specialised souks — leather near the tanneries, spices around Souk Attarine, wood in the Nejjarine quarter, ceramics near Bab Boujeloud — and the work is genuinely produced here, not imported from China. Quality varies dramatically, and prices are not fixed.
The classic purchases are Fez blue pottery (the distinctive cobalt-on-white earthenware produced in the kilns south of the city), babouche slippers, leather bags, carved cedar, hand-knotted carpets, kilims, and embroidered tablecloths. For ceramics, the wholesale kilns on the road toward Sefrou sell the same goods as the medina shops for a fraction of the price; a petit taxi there and back costs almost nothing.
Haggling is expected and prices at tourist-facing stalls routinely start at three to five times the expected final price. The polite approach — express interest, ask the price, offer roughly half, settle somewhere in between — is accepted everywhere. Guides who take you to shops receive a commission on your purchases; this is understood and not necessarily a problem, but it is worth knowing. If you want to shop without a guide's influence, leave them at the door.