Uk Shopping In Spain - Consumer Advisor

• If you buy goods on the internet, you still have the same rights as if you were shopping on the high street, in relation to faulty or poorly described goods.
• In addition, you are entitled to a seven working-day 'cooling off' period.
• If you are still not sure about shopping online please contact me....Uk shops are now offering bargains that would be hard to match here in Spain!

The difficulty in Internet shopping seems to be the abysmal 'service' offered by Spain's Correos. It hardly inspires confidence and must cause immense damage to the potentiol of Internet commerce.

It is a pity because I am one of the biggest fans of Internet shopping. Soon the high street shops will merely be showrooms for the stores Internet Shopping sections. This is already happening. The trend is unstoppable. So this is yet another area in which Spain really does need to draag itself into the 21st Century   ...   out of the Nineteenth.

Hi Mike, thanks for your response.

You are not wrong in your coments and that is much of the reason I am posting on the forum.

Whilst not here to advertise I do represent, in a consumer advisory position the website included in the digital signature of my posts.

The company offer a safe and efficient carriage of the products you may require from the Uk.

Please check out their site and come back to me with any further queries.

http://www.ukshoppinginspain.com

Hi Mike - yes, I do agree that Correos have a long way to go but many online companies will use a courier / delivery service because of that. 

And again, courier services do vary here - I have used two different companies in Spain and one is just awful but another one was superb.  I think that, as internet shopping grows in Spain, we will see an improvement in customer service - but I have learned that change takes time here so I am learning to be patient!!

Not wrong, just opinionated, which is based on experience. Where I live enormous distress is experienced by the entire community because of the shortcomings of Correos.

It has been the subject of publicity, enquiries, campaigns, but all to no avail. The number of people who have lost important documents because Correos, unless the address is correct to the hyphen, will not deliver. They say they 'return to sender'; this in fact rarely happens. As a consequence the choice is to subscribe to a local and expensive private post box, or do as I do   ...   I have stuff sent to my next UK visitor's home and they bring my stuff with them. If things are different elsewhere in Spain, or if the retailers you represent take responsibility for delivery then fine.

I am all for it. As you can see from my earlier posting there is no bigger fan of Internet shopping than I am. That is not the issue. Correos is the Big Issue.

I don't know if you've heard of Offex they offer a service where your mail is taken from spain by an agent here and franced in the Uk, bypassing the Spanish post! I believe it costs about a euro for a standard letter.

Here in Mojacar the service is offered by Rohha the catalogue shop on the Paseo del Mediterraneo. You could give them a ring to find out more or visit the Offex website for information on local agents.

Thanks Claire and Eedie   ...   our correspondence about sums it up and sure things will get better. Other than that all I buy is DVDS and CDs, the occasional camera or whatever..... but the Internet is brilliant, from a bloke's perspective. One can browse at leisure without any 'Can I help you, sir?' intrusions. Choose, pay   ...  and it is delivered to the grateful recipient in the UK with big smilies. Great

Eedie,

What happens if you need to return something the internet (UK retailer), how is this covered?

I am no expert as so far I have been 100% happy with my on-line purchases. Amazon - I think I returned an item once; all I did was post it back and the money was credited to my account. The same happened when on one occasion the ink cartridges I bought were faulty; they were replaced and I never had to step outside, catch a bus, go into town.

I mentioned before that the household name stores will still dominate the high streets but they won't actually be selling much. They will primarily be opportunities for shoppers to browse and then either buy or go home and purchase what they fancy on-line; very often at a discount.

PC World already operates this way. Most of their sales are made on the Internet. Many of these sales can be sourced from a shopper who went into the store, asked the questions, made their minds up   ...   went home and bought the goods on-line, at the aforesaid discount.

I have seen this same post on at least fifty sites now - a complete spam by the owner of a commercial website.  However, to put right the "advice" given, remember that the distance selling regulations do provide a "cooling off" period of seven working days from delivery of the goods.

In the case of Eedie's company, that seven working days starts from delivery at her company's UK depot.  According to that company, delivery takes "On average 10-14 days depending o­n the delivery time quoted by the supplier"  Cooling off period already expired!

As far as I am concerned, there is only one way to buy on the net from the UK and that is by buying direct with no third party involved.  I have found a Spanish based shopping site that has listed all the major UK shops that will deliver to expats in Spain at low cost Eedie's company starts at £45 IN ADDITION to the charges of the retailer. 

They are also called UK Shopping in Spain but only point you to the sites and they add no charges and provide links directly to the retailers keeping all the consumers rights intact!

 Thankyou for your reply to my post, it´s always good to hear other peoples opinions and thought. As you know the consumer has the right to use whatever service they see fit and appropriate. To compare our service to YOURS is like comparing apples and pears.

1. They say imitation is the best form of flattery so thankyou for copying our name and watch this space for anything else you may like to steal.

2. We have been established in Spain for over 3 years and we also have hundreds of customers supplying testimoniales to prove this.

3. Our service provides an ORDER and DELIVERY service to expats in Spain who particularly enjoy the fact that we take care of the entire process for them. 

4. This means that customers who do not have a credit card or do not want to use theirs online can shop safely with us. They  don´t even have to pay us witha credit card as they can pay by bank transfer of pay pal. Our company also offers insurance on all deliveries for free.

5. We also have over 150 collection points across the whole of Spain so our customers don´t have to wait in on day of delivery .

6. Our service is so good it has been mentioned in The Telegraph Newspaper in the UK  and we have acclaimed celebrities use the service.

7. We also offer our consumer advisor eedie for free consumer advice on the forums as a personal contact  for expats .

Most of the big retailers (amazon, M+S, argos etc.) deliver to mainland Europe now, so I'm struggling to see why anyone would use such a service.

You would save money going direct to the retailer and cut out the middle man.

Eedies latest post skates around the fact that by using her service, consumers loose their rights to a cooling off period as well as most of their consumer rights as they do not have a contract with the supplier but with Eedies company.

Using paypal through Eedies company is an unsafe method to pay - all rights of buyer protection are lost if the goods are not delivered to the card address.  When buying direct, goods shipped by the supplier carry full insurance cover, or at least in the event of non delivery or damage are subject to a refund by the card issuers and without the exclusions contained in Eedies company's terms.

The newer company at ukshopping does not get involved in the buying process as this ensures all consumer rights are maintained - they have actually just brought together nearly 300 UK retailers into a single site to show the various options available to expats along with the various delivery options.  More importantly, there is no £45 charge for help in ordering and the delivery of a one kilo package!  That website has been built by expats with over 30 years expat residency in Spain.

As Sanchez1 states, you are far better dealing direct with the retailer in terms of cost as well as the protection of consumer rights. 

Shopping in Spain is careful to be quite an inexpensive & relaxed affair then it is in additional part of the Europe. If you want  buy shoes online visit  garageshoes.co.uk and buy shoes online.