Online shopping in Italy

I, Like Iansaron, also use Amazon but both .IT and .co.uk.. Used in tandem they have provided most things large and small that I have needed. I have Prime membership on both sites and the cost is easily returned with no further cost for delivery and also use of the UK Prime video and film service. I also have products sent to a UK address, hence two Prime memberships. I have used the Prime services 32 times from the UK site to Italy and 52 times from the Italian site in the last 6 months.

I have ordered carpets, long stainless steel handrails, batteries, light fittings, plugs and a lot more that are delivered to my Italian home. I use both sites to research and compare with each other and I have found most things that I want for my recent move to Italy this way. A lot of items on the UK site can be shipped to Italy for a modest charge and some items on the UK site cost a lot more on the Italian site even with delivery costs included. As I say research and compare. Also, I use the Google translate extension to Chrome to translate the Italian site.

A good recent example of comparing UK and Italian sites is the purchase of 2 very large carpets (11ft by 7ft). The UK would deliver to Italy for £27 each but the Italian site cost only €27 for both even though in each case the despatching depot would have been the same. On the other hand, I have experienced prices that have been equivalent but the items, again, came from the UK depot but using Italian Prime delivery. I cannot make much sense of this disparity.

Delivery is ok but I have found that UPS is the worst company often failing to deliver on time even saying I was not at home to take delivery on several occasions, only delivering after I have complained to UPS HQ in the US. It seems that items coming from Germany tend to use UPS. Generally, the other couriers are much the same except that I have found GLS to be very reliable.