Shopping in Argentina

As I mentioned in a previous thread, we are furnishing a small apartment to rent, so we are on the hunt for a variety of goods.

This week I had a pleasant/unpleasant experience with the purchase of an electric kettle (pava eléctrica). After much research in advance on Mercadolibre, I was set on a stainless steel one (for aesthetic reasons) with both mate and boiling temperature set (for practical reasons).

I was made aware from comments/reviews on ML that many kettles that feature the temperature switch are Chinese crap and don't work. This one I bought from Rex, Yark brand, was not available on ML and had no review, however it was advertised as having "corte mate", which I interpreted as in "it shuts off once it reaches the temperature to pour a mate". Apparently, that was not what it meant.

My kettle had three issues:

1) the mate temperature is 85°C according to the instruction leaflet, but it was boiling anyway

2) the stainless iron chassis became friggin' hot

3) the kettle didn't shut off once it reached the temperature. This is a feature thought for those who want to keep their water hot for prolonged time. However, my husband didn't understand this and he kept the EMPTY kettle on for all of the afternoon. Which is a huge safety risk, if you ask me.

The pleasant experience was that once I emailed Rex to inquire on their return policy, they replied in 15" saying to bring the item to any of their stores. And to add up to the positive return experience, the guy at the store barely looked at it, and didn't try the item. They just swiped again my card, made me sign a return paper, and I got my money back immediately.

Less pleasant was to find out that there isn't much better on the market in Argentina at the moment. My SIL is traveling abroad next week and when I looked on Amazon Mexico, all of the kettles looked from the future, compared to those sold in Argentina. I had my eyes on a digital kettle by Black & Decker that my BIL owns and that he bought here many years ago, but it has been out of stock for two years. The only digital ones left are reported to have electronics issue after one year of use (local brands). Some days, my love of Argentina takes the form of anger...

I have a 7 years old Bosch that was gifted to us when we first moved in together in Italy. I guess I have never appreciate it enough until now.

Quote from Rice

UK Man , that’s easy to fix. Let vinegar sit on the crud for awhile and it will dissolve.

We regularly do the vinegar trick, but it works well for the bottom of the kettle, not for the "beak".

Tomorrow (well, today at midnight) the Hot Sales begin. I am not entirely convinced there are actual sales/deals in Argentina, but I have made up my mind to buy some stuff for the new place. Will I be successful?

The shopping list is: microwave, kettle, toaster and maybe TVs.

We will leave A/C for later, as we have to be able to install them to try them out.

I will give it a try, thanks for the suggestion! I will try to soak cotton in vinegar.

We purchased a 800 W microwave + grill 23 lt for 29.999 ARS today (about 63 USD).

Looks nice and it works, which is all we were asking for.

If anyone is interested, we got it from Electro-Outlet. It is also sold on ML starting from 38k

Microondas Digital con Grill Renacer 23lts PA-CR823MG-V Primera - electrooutlet

Today, last day of the Hot Sales days, we bought the mattress, bed frame and A/C units.

A/C units: we were originally going for this Philco inverter 3000 BTU for 199,000 ARS but it was sold out. On the advice of the sales clerk, we got a Sansei one. She said that the same factory manufactures Philco, Sansei, Atma and Noblex. She assured us it was exactly the same stuff as Philco. Clearly, she had never read an appliance label, but still... it was the cheapest inverter A/C we found today (179,999 ARS or 385 USD).

The Philco one boeasted a class efficiency A++ (cooling) and A (heating) and a power of 3.5 KW. The Sansei is A and 3.2 kW. It will be a month before we are able to install it and test it.

Mattress and bed frame

High density memory foam mattress have finally made their way in Argentina. When we first arrived here in 2014, when I was asking for memory foam mattress, people looked at me like I was from Mars (I was). Now there are new brands that specializes solely in this kind of mattress, which can be easily shipped/bought as they are in a vacuum and rolled (only some products, it depends on the foam density).

We bought a new mattress for us one year ago from La Espumeria, and they provided a generous discount if paying cash. Combined with the Hot Sales, we bought the cheapest King (180x200 m) for 102,000 ARS or 218 USD. For the bed frame, we found a tall one (31 cm) that would allow to slip under our guests' luggage at Calm (a competitor of La Espumeria) for 80,000 ARS or 171 USD. The Hot Sales Price was 20% off and they offered another 20% for ful payment (instead of installments). Given the success of the Hot Sales day, the delivery date from the frame is.... mid July. Ouch!

I have to say that the Hot Sales prices are actually discounted. As I mentioned previously, I had been monitoring prices for a while, so I can say we got actual discounts. Of course, it doesn't mean that if the dollar should jump again, it would have costed us less in USD, in the end.