Istanbul shopping needs: online, interior, organic, arts & crafts

Hello, expat community!

My husband and I are looking to obtain the following in Istanbul. Shop references are great, but any opportunity to shop online is extra appreciated as I am very pregnant and this is a BIG city! Could you please also indicate if any of the sites are available in English/French as we are not sufficiently proficient in Turkish to navigate.

-yoga props/materials
-(online) organic groceries & related products (i.e.: essential oils)
-fairy lights/garlands and bohemian interior decor
-indoor/outdoor plants and terrarium materials
-raw crystals, precious stones
-fine art & craft supply (i.e.: ribbons)

I realise that most nonperishables can be purchased online through giants like Amazon, etc. Has anyone had success ordering online via Amazon (or other UK/American distributors) to Istanbul? Do packages  come directly to mailboxes? What is the maximum value before one can expect difficulty with customs/extra fees?

Many thanks/tesekkurler ederim!

Hi LJohnson,

Regarding your query about Amazon, not many vendors deliver to Turkey owing to certain customs/duties probably.

However you can easily find almost everything online within Turkey.

-For sports and materials related to yoga, you can check the website of DECATHLON.

-For online organic groceries & related products, try MACRO, MMM MIGROS, CARREFOUR SA and BIM.
(Macros and Migros offer all sorts of high end products while BIM is comparatively economical.)

-For fairy lights/garlands and bohemian interior decor try TSCHIBO, and also MACRO, MIGROS & CARREFOUR

-For indoor/outdoor plants and terrarium materials try BAUHAUS

-For raw crystals, precious stones try ZULTANITE GEMS


For crystals and fine art; craft supply I would strongly advise you to purchase physically instead of buying online.

I hope this list is helpful. You can find the sites in English as well.. and in case the are not,  most browsers now offer automatic translation of any website to your desired language.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask.

Good luck with the pregnancy
Z

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Hello and thank you so much for your thoughtful detailed reply! I will keep the above in mind and buy my crystals directly!

Have a wonderful day!

Glad you found the post helpful Linda, please feel  free to ask about anything in future as well.

Happy shopping
Z

PS: Also, just wanted to add, for electronics & electrical accessories, some of the best options to buy are TEKNO SA and MEDIA MARKT.

Hi,

I recently visited Turkey and fell in love with the choice of teas you get over there. especially the flavoured ones. Do you know if there are any online shops which sell them and ships it to UAE.

thanks and regards

KK

hi
interesting are you still in turkey maybe we can do many things together

Most Turkish tea related products are available online through Amazon and other similar services.

Good luck
Z

kkeyan wrote:

Hi,

I recently visited Turkey and fell in love with the choice of teas you get over there. especially the flavoured ones. Do you know if there are any online shops which sell them and ships it to UAE.

thanks and regards

KK

Hey there!

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we try not to leave home - not even for grocery shopping. So we tried different websites; carrrefoure, migros, happy land and endudu. Happy land wasn't available in our location. With others, we were able to register. We preferred to pay in cash but had no luck. None of them had the pay at the door option. So we settled for paying online. Since we don't have a Turkish bank account/card we had to use our American Visa card. It was not accepted by any of those websites. Not sure why? Maybe because the billing address was not in turkey? How do other foreigners shop online then? What are your thoughts? Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

have you ever used same card for online shopping before? it sounds unreasonable, it should have worked. are you sure that it is not closed for e-commerce/internet/mail order? although it varies among banks, mostly those choices are seperated for domestic and abroad preferences, you better check all.

Thanks for responding! Yes, we've used the same card since 2 years ago to order food from Yemek Sepeti and it's worked without problems. Doesn't seem like a bank related issue.
Is there any websites for grocery shopping which would accept cash? This is frustrating

2 years, seriously! banks sometimes changes default security options on behalf of you for yr favor without yr further confirmation. why dont you recheck? dont you use internet banking and/or mobile application?