Carrefour vs. El Corte Inglés
Written by mpowell
Both are popular Spanish superstores, which sell just about everything under the sun. Carrefour, however, has the look and feel of a Walmart, while El Corte Inglés is much more upscale. Guess which one we like more?
Yep, we’re cheap bastards who will gladly buy the €6 iron, complain when it doesn’t work right, then go right out and buy another €6 iron. Quality has no place in our household.
It’s a shame that El Corte Inglés (location, location, location) is so much more easily accessible than Carrefour (location), from the city center. Despite ourselves, we end up there nearly every day. It’s the convenient answer to every question: "Where’s the nearest post office?", "Where can I develop film?", "Buy groceries?", "Hardware store?", etc etc.
My love/hate relationship with El Corte Inglés began a day after I moved into the city. I had bought myself a €2 bottle of wine, and the question "Now where can I buy a corkscrew?" had one obvious answer. Moments later, I found myself staring at a wonderful selection of corkscrews (Yay!), the cheapest of which was six times as expensive as the wine (Grr!).
So which gets your vote? Are there other similar stores in the city? Now that our move is complete and we’re relatively settled, I think we’re done shopping at either one for awhile.
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FabricalDreams wrote,
Corte Ingles is a good option but only if you want to buy a specific kind of products, for instance, informatic products, you will pay more but you will have a good post-sale service. I mean, Corte Ingles is a good option due to the possibility to change the product if you have any problem. One of the main reasons to buy in Corte Ingles is the security that you have in order to do any complain related to whatever problem. Sometimes you can find good sales but, you are right, Corte Ingles is very expensive because you are paying also the service.
If you need food or whatever related to this kind of product, Carrefour or Consum are better options
PD: Sorry for my poor english ^^U
Link | March 11th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
valencia blog wrote,
…..
now I have to ask a specific question - where would you look for a gas BBQ grill? I am really excited to cook outside and we are thinking to check out places on Saturday.
The only thing I can come up with is Core Ingels .. ha ha … and Bauhaus.
Any other suggestions?
Also … what about this place … Makro? You need to have a business before you can shopping there?
Link | March 12th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
FabricalDreams wrote,
You must be cautious about cook outside, I think is better that you cook in a specific place prepared to do it with all security measures. But, if you use a place prepared to cook outside, I think the best option is to search an ironmonger’s/hardware store.
About makro I think you are right, you need to have some special card related to a bussines in order to buy here.
Link | March 12th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
39th Annual Book Fair of Valencia | Hola Valencia Blog wrote,
[...] in Valencia has a presence here, from Libreria Patagonia (yea!), to Futurama Comics (hurrah!), to El Corte Ingles [...]
Link | April 25th, 2008 at 7:26 pm