Spain’s shopping experience is absolutely different from the UK, with specialist family-run outlets forming the bulk of sales activity. This is, however, changing fast, with out of town shopping centres springing up everywhere, but in the cool of the evening, with a stop for a cafe con leche or a tapas, indulging in a multilingual conversation with the occupants at the next table, shopping can still be a pleasurable activity.
Consumer Choice
TiendasThe smaller
tiendas (shops) are cheerful, friendly, helpful places where the owners and assistants are anxious to please. This is also where the annoying Spanish characteristic of ‘not forming queues’ is seen at its worst. People push and shove to the front to be served. This is best borne with patience as the perpetrators of this behaviour are often elderly and seem to think that their advanced years entitle them to non-queuing privileges. Alternatively say ‘
perdone’ and address the sales assistant who usually knows what is happening.
Opening hours for
tiendas vary between summer and winter, but normally are 09.30 to 13.30 and 16.30 to 19.30 Monday to Friday, plus a Saturday morning. The afternoon siesta seems inappropriate in winter but essential in summer when the shops open later, as no one wishes to go shopping during the intense heat. There is, however, pressure to change this custom from businesses and other Europeans. Banks and some organisations open at 08.00 and close at 14.30. Holiday resorts, restaurants and hypermarkets open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, having already squeezed the siesta out of existence.
The
tienda retailing backbone is highly specialised.
Hypermarkets
French owned hypermarkets such as
Carrefour and
Intermarche dominate food retailing. Smaller German supermarkets such as
Lidl and
Aldi compete on price but not on product range. Spanish companies such as
Mercadona are now gaining a firm foothold. Hypermarket shopping is an experience not to be missed, with everything possible being sold
under one roof: clothes, footwear, garden plants and equipment, sports goods, bicycles, electrical goods, hi-fi, furniture, DIY, motoring accessories, kitchenware, toys and books. The food hall has a massive product range. The fruit and vegetables are highly colourful. The delicatessen counter is staggering, with a huge variety of sausages and cheeses. The fish counter is laden down with salmon, trout, mussels, skate, mackerel and a whole range of unrecognisable species. The wine, spirit, soft drink and bottled water section stretches for miles. These hypermarkets have 40 to 60 checkouts. Staff are equipped with roller skates to get from point to point. Franchised within the same building are restaurants, banks, jewellers, newsagents and the National Lottery.
Clothing
There is one major, famous chain store in Spain –
El Corte Inglés. It has a similar marketing strategy to other European retailers, selling mainly male and female clothing together with books, CDs, electrical goods, computers, kitchenware and sports equipment. Price points are similar to, or higher than, the rest of Europe with occasional cut-price sales (
rebajas).
With the exception of a large number of international sports brands, clothing is not yet a fashion statement outside big cities. It is conservative in taste, for Spain is not yet a fashion centre; its citizens sticking to fairly traditional styles.
European chain stores, like European banks, have only a few outlets in major cities. The marketplace may be penetrated by individual foreign brands, but not by foreign retailers. Where they do exist they tend to be a poor relation of their national counterparts.