Department Stores in Barcelona

The department stores in Barcelona are just fabulous. There are some department stores in the city and some others are a part of well known retail chains like El Corte Ingles. Barcelona has got two huge department stores, both are well located with lots of footfalls each day that translate in to significant revenues for the retail chain. One is located in the busiest part of the city, Placa Catalunya and has 7 floors, the other store is in the main business and finance street of the city, Diagonal and has 5 floors. The most well known and reputed El Corte Ingles, is the natural destination of several shoppers, including tourists.

El Corte Ingles, the well known department store in Barcelona was founded in 1934 by Ramon Areces. The English meaning of the Spanish name of the store is very interesting, the literal translation is The English Cut. Anyway, Areces bought the tailor’s shop in 1890 and turned it in to a limited company and after his death, his nephew inherited his fortune. Isidoro Alvarez bought out the only serious competitor of El Corte Ingles, Galerias Preciado and the northward journey of the company continued. The company today has expanded to Portugal and Italy.

Some people compare this department store in Barcelona to Selfridges in London. Lower ground floor of this store has a supermarket with a wide selection of high quality meats, cheeses, wines, cava. The ground floor has accessories, cosmetics, perfumes and souvenir sections. Then onwards, each floor has a particular category only like menswear, ladies wear, children, house & garden, sports, electronics, computers. Only a few of the department stores in Barcelona have bridal department, holiday bookings and change of currency. The layout of the department stores are more or less the same, each article is categorized under a particular head, this helps in saving time for finding the article that is needed.