Thread: English Shops

Ok Country Boy, Calm down, don't get excited. The War Department has not started on the online ordering yet, so, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh theres a love!!!

Hello Rachele and welcome to the Absolute Spain Forum, I normally buy spanish, many of the shops around me sell more and more british products. If I do use internet for shopping it is mostly gifts for friends/family in UK.

Any new goods we have needed for our place, we have bought from our local muebles, so far a fridge, washing machine, dishwasher and oven no problems at all with quality nor price. We bought a bed from Ikea the mattress of which was a big disappointment, we had to buy another from them as their beds are non standard. So far it is okay. When we start to look for a sofa we would definatley NOT be buying DFS ( long story) We will start with our local man and see what he has to offer. I am sure we will find something suitable at a good price here. The few items I like from UK that I cannot find so far here, we get when we go back or visitors bring for us.

We try, wherever, possible, to buy and use local products. The quality and price are invariably good and they are designed for the local climate. The only sticking point is style. Furniture, for example, tends to be too heavy and chunky. Gas stoves here rarely have any form of regulation (other than off/on) for the oven - they are available (we have one) but not so easy to find.

The info on Tesco is useful since my sister is a coeliac and the guten-free bread here is like sawdust but she likes the Tesco bread.

Many people seem to consider the quality of fresh produce to be lower but, in fact, that is only the appearance (oranges, for example, have blemishes) but as I said in an earlier posting, unless you want to use them for a still-life painting, it is the taste and flavour that is most important not the appearance. As for price, cherries for example are £4.80 - £5.00 per kg in UK but we can buy them €2.95 for 2.5 kg here in the local supermarket.

I would be interested to find out how much you pay for delivery etc on a sofa?
I had a sofa made here in Valencia, in the shop you can see a selection of styles on dispaly and you can choose and mix what you want with a choice of thousands of materials. A large 2 seater sofa with both seats extendable in 2 colours only set me back 350€ absolute BARGAIN i reckon. I chose the exact design I wanted, the head rest from one, the seats from another and the arms from another, also the height and form.
Everyone comments on how comfortable it is and where did i buy it.
I can´t believe you could get that service from any shop in UK for such a good price.

That is exactly what we hope to do down here, there are so many sofa places to choose from. We had replacement cushions made for our old sailing boat to a very exact shape, they are great. We also had new ones made for the swing chair, no problem. Next is new toldos and seating for lounge, I think it is great that you can choose the style of all the elements to get a really comfy sofa/chairs.

Just picked up on this thread and I cant belive the cost of electrical good in Spain we were looking for TV and DVD and they were double the price nearly of the UK

Cant comment on TV's but my husband was looking at them and he did not seem to make any comment on the prices so I guess he thought them ok. ( he is not known to spend when not really needed, he sure has some scottish in him lol)

We recently bought a new washing machine which seemed reasonable in price and does just what I want.

We have found that the electrical goods such as kettles, irons mirowaves etc that we have bought in Spain don't seem to last as long as those from the UK. We are now using a kettle, brought for us from the UK and it already has lasted longer than our last one.

Most of us have probably bought our furniture, and with very few Brits buying, new properties (second hand ones are normally furnished) Apart from replacement kitchen electicals, I don't think there will be much call for imported large items..As for clothes, most men I know have more than they can use, and live half the year in shorts and sandals.. Most women I know would rather try every item in the shops and browse for hours than buy clothes on line...British Food items if needed are readily available in shops such as Iceland.