I tend to do most of the shopping for my daughter Sophie’s clothes, shoes, and toys in the US. Diapers and food are pretty much the only things we buy for her locally here in Istanbul. We always return back to Turkey with a lot of extra luggage. I have to admit, I often feel embarrassed when I approach the check-in counter at the airport in the US with all my suitcases and boxes in tow. By the time I finish packing my suitcases at home in the US and get them to the airport, I feel completely exhausted and tell myself “I gotta stop doing this to myself...it’s not worth the stress and trouble”. And when I unpack them here in Turkey, I am terrified trying to figure out where to store all this stuff in our tiny two-bedroom apartment.
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Returning back to Turkey. Unloading cars at the airport in Atlanta.
We drove two cars to the airport that day. This is just stuff form one car.
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One of the reasons I try to buy everything in the US is that the baby gear, clothes and toys are a lot cheaper there than they are in Turkey. All this stuff costs here at least twice as much if not more. I also like to read reviews before buying toys, which is not very common in Turkey. The other reason why I don’t like shopping for toys and clothes in Turkey is that I don’t find the stores for kids here very appealing. Most of the times they are quite small, not well organized, not very clean and have a very dull lighting. Children are not allowed to touch anything at the store. A sales associate literally follows you around the store, reminding your child not to touch anything and straightens items on the shelf immediately after you looked at them. I find it very frustrating and annoying.
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| A toy store at one of the malls in Istanbul |
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| Inside the toy store |
There is one store though that I’ve always liked better than the other ones. It’s called “Imaginarium”. Imaginarium is a Spanish toy store with locations throughout Europe. I like their store design, lighting and displays. Their toys also look pretty nice and fun although pretty pricey. It’s the only toy store in Istanbul that makes me want to shop for toys, but I always walk out of there feeling that I overpaid for the toy I just purchased.
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| Imaginarium store |
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| Inside one of the Imaginarium stores |
Sophie is into phones these days. She loves to pretend calling somebody and chat with her imaginary friends on the other line. A few weeks ago, I stopped by at Imaginarium to check out their sales. I saw a set of two “walkie-talkie” type phones. The box said you can use the phones within the 80m radius and I immediately jumped on it imagining Sophie having tons of fun chatting with her friends on the phone at the next play date in our home. The phone set was on sale with 50% off for only 59TL/$35 and I felt very lucky to have found such a great deal.
Right after the store I picked up Sophie from Hokus Pokus, her daycare, and rushed home to show her the new toy. We were very disappointed when we unpacked the phones and tried playing with them. The phones are made from a very thin cheap plastic and look very cheap. They only work when both phones are very close to each other. The manual states they work as far as 80m apart from each other, I’d say within 10m at the most. It’s worthless because then you just hear the person talk right next to you. In addition there is a lot of static noise, which makes it difficult to hear the person on the other line. So the toy is not a keeper.
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| Phone set waiting to be returned |
I wasn’t sure whether or not I could return the toy back to Imaginarium, because return policies here are not as flexible as they are in the US. To my surprise, I was able to return the phones without any problems for a store credit valid for the next six months. “Imaginarium” has a 30 day/store credit return policy. Hopefully we can find a fun and good quality toy next time we shop there.
Lately, I have been questioning my attitude towards shopping in Turkey thinking maybe it's really not worth the trouble importing everything from the US. But when I walked out of Imaginarium after returning the phones, I felt pretty convinced that it actually still makes sense to me to do my shopping in the US. Not only it's cheaper, but for me, it's also a more fun and pleasant experience...and I can rest assured, if there is something wrong with my purchase, I can always return it hassle-free no questions asked.
