Online shopping may not be as popular in Portugal as it is in other countries, but it’s growing in popularity – both as a way of buying from Portuguese retailers and also as a way of buying (often cheaper) products from abroad.
Read the guides
Shopping at some sites – Amazon, for example – isn’t always straight-forward, but Portugalist’s guides help make things easy to understand.
Amazon
Amazon doesn’t officially have a presence in Portugal yet, but that doesn’t stop people shopping at Amazon Spain, Germany, UK, and even Amazon US.
Read more in Portugalist’s guide to shopping at Amazon from Portugal.
eBay
EBay may not be as popular as classifieds website OLX, but that doesn’t mean it’s not popular – some estimates suggest that, in Portugal, it’s even more popular than Amazon.
Read more in Portugalist’s guide to shopping at eBay from Portugal.
Top 20 Online Shops in Portugal
What’s the most popular online shop for Portuguese shoppers? If you thought Amazon, which is what I guessed, you’d be wrong – at least according to data I was able to get from SimilarWeb, a web analytics company.
According to SimilarWeb, the most popular e-commerce and shopping website in Portugal is OLX.
Of course! OLX, the Craigslist of Portugal, is the most popular website for buying things in Portugal whether that’s second hand furniture, a house, or even farm animals.
Is it an online shop, though? Most people would say no. In that case, the most popular online shop in Portugal is Worten followed by Aliexpress and then Fnac.
| Top 20 Shopping Sites Overall | Top 20 Shopping Sites (online shops only) |
|---|---|
| olx.pt | worten.pt |
| worten.pt | aliexpress.com |
| custojusto.pt | fnac.pt |
| aliexpress.com | ebay.com |
| fnac.pt | continente.pt |
| ebay.com | amazon.com |
| continente.pt | amazon.es |
| kuantokusta.pt | pcdiga.com |
| amazon.com | wook.pt |
| amazon.es | amazon.co.uk |
| pcdiga.com | ebay.co.uk |
| wook.pt | lidl.pt |
| amazon.co.uk | banggood.com |
| ebay.co.uk | wish.com |
| trovit.pt | elcorteingles.pt |
| lidl.pt | aki.pt |
| banggood.com | ticketline.sapo.pt |
| wish.com | amazon.de |
| elcorteingles.pt | conforama.pt |
| aki.pt | mercadolivre.com.br |
Popular shops
Unsurprisingly, a lot of online shopping in Portugal is international. This isn’t just expats that shop here, but Portuguese shoppers as well.
Amazon
According to SimilarWeb, more people in Portugal use Amazon.com than Amazon.es. This could be true, but it does seem unlikely as it shopping at Amazon.com (the US site) means paying customs and import duties on online orders.
Anecdotally, most people I know shop at Amazon Spain or, at least, look at Amazon Spain first. Amazon Spain doesn’t have as good a selection as Amazon UK or Amazon Germany, but it’s geographically closer and, unlike the other Amazons, it offers free shipping on orders over €29 or €19 for books.
Either way, Amazon appeared several times in the top 20 for Amazon.com, Amazon.es, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.de.
eBay.com
EBay actually ranks higher than Amazon, according to this report. There are a couple of reasons why this might be.
Firstly, if you’re shopping from Portugal, it’s actually easier to use than Amazon.
With Amazon, often you don’t know how much shipping will be until you get to the checkout. Sometimes, and this is actually quite regular, you’ll find out that the seller doesn’t actually ship to Portugal.
Ebay is much easier. You can click to short by ‘Price + Shipping: Lowest First’ and eBay will include the cost of shipping the product to Portugal. If the product can’t be delivered to Portugal, eBay won’t show it.
Gearbest
Gearbest is a popular site for buying electronics, clothes, toys, and just about everything else from China. The products are usually much cheaper than what you can find in Europe, but are usually made by a brand you’ve never heard of. Standard shipping is also generally quite slow, and orders often take more than a month to arrive and are often stopped by customs.
That said, it’s usually very affordable and, if you know what you’re looking for, you can often save quite a bit of money by shopping there.
Aliexpress
Aliexpress is another popular shop for buying Chinese-made products, not just in Portugal but around the world. It’s particularly popular in countries like Brazil, Russia, the United States, and Spain.
Essentially, Aliexpress is eBay but for brand new, Chinese-made products. This could be anything from gadgets and electronics to clothing, but also power tools, home and garden appliances, furniture, or sporting equipment. You name it, you can get it on Aliexpress.
As with Gearbest, shipping can be quite slow and many items get held up in Portuguese customs.
Popular Portuguese shops
Although international sites like Amazon and Aliexpress are extremely popular in Portugal, that’s not to say that Portugal doesn’t have its own native companies. The following are just a handful of the most popular online shops in Portugal.
Worten
Worten is a Portuguese chain that sells electronics and home appliances – everything from laptops and mobile phones to fridges, televisions, and blenders. You’ll find a Worten in just about every part of Portugal, including Madeira and the Azores, as well as in parts of Spain. Worten’s online shop, worten.pt, is one of the most popular Portuguese online shops in Portugal.
Fnac
Fnac is a French chain that sells music, electronics and appliances, gifts, gaming equipment and video games, and toys. Like Worten, Fnac is fairly widespread and you’ll find a Fnac store in most parts of Portugal.
OLX
OLX technically isn’t a shop. It’s a classifieds website, similar to Craigslist in the US or Gumtree in the UK and Australia. It isn’t the only classifieds website in Portugal. Other popular sites include Sapo, Custo Justo, Coisas, and Miau.
Still, it’s one of the most popular Portuguese destinations for online shopping. Like Craigslist or any other classifieds website, you can buy everything here from new and second hand mobile phones to furniture, clothes, cars, and more.
Continente
Continente is one of Portugal’s largest Portuguese supermarkets but, as well as being a place to buy groceries, it’s also a popular place to buy homewares, furnishings, furniture, gifts, and toys.
Wook
Wook is a Portuguese online bookshop that sells printed books and ebooks. Prices tend to be higher than Amazon but, despite this, it’s still one of Portugal’s most popular online stores.
Ticketline
Ticketline is Portugal’s largest ticket website. If you’re looking for tickets to concerts and events, the theatre or even the cinema, there’s a good chance it’s sold through Ticketline. As so many events are sold through ticketline, it’s actually a good website to look at just to see what’s happening locally.
Are there any price comparison sites where you enter a product name and it shows prices from multiple shops?
https://www.kuantokusta.pt/ is the best one for Portuguese shops, I think.
Hallo,
What if amzon have officials site in Portugal ??
Let’s make Amazon Portugal are u ready!!!
Let’s make news officially….
Do they even ship to the islands in Portugal, like Madeira?
It depends on the shop. A lot do but some don’t or charge very high shipping fees.
Do you know of any sellers of greetings cards that are written in Portuguese please?
Do people experience a lot of issues with receiving their purchases from outside the country? U.K.,USA, other European countries?
Hi Giselle,
There shouldn’t be any problems ordering products from another EU country but, yes, purchases coming from places outside of the EU like the USA get stopped at customs.
YES, the tax authority seizes everything from outside the EU they can, and make retrieving them a nightmare.
You better speak Portuguese because you wont succeed otherwise. Their site is opnly in Portuguese and even for Portuguese is difficult to navigate.
It is the epitome of greed combined with a bureaucracy that has NO external controls.
Hi, any idea where I can buy hookah tobacco online to deliver to algarve
Hi Lanvin,
I haven’t used anywhere personally that I can recommend.
Great info ,good thanks .
Can I sell these products in South Africa ? I would like to be a sales agent for one of these companies
When I was in Lisbon, I bought this product but I am unable to locate here in US.
The product is called” Casa Pontinha de Sal Tempero para Peixes”
Please advise.
Thank you.
Alan Sazant
Hi Alan,
I imagine this is a seasoning mix for fish? I couldn’t find it online so I don’t know what the ingredients are, but there are other companies based in the US that sell Portuguese seasonings for fish (e.g. https://altiusspice.com/shop/fish-seafood-seasoning-grinders/portuguese-seasoning-for-fish-seafood/ ). You could try that and see if it’s similar.
What about import taxes? If I buy on eBay and it gets delivered to Portugal, do I still need to pay customs?
It depends.
Are you buying from a seller in the EU? If so, then there are no import taxes to pay.
If you’re buying from outside of the EU (e.g. the USA) then you do need to pay import taxes. EBay has a “Global Shipping Program” that allows you to pay those taxes in advance when you go through the checkout, but, from experience, your item may still get slowed down at customs – although you won’t have anything to pay.
This service isn’t available for all items, and you can choose to pay the customs yourself as well.
So, basically it depends on where the seller is located.
Very informative writing, how about tax and procedure when import electronics or books into Portugal?