A word of warning

Yeah we all know there is eBay, Aliexpress and Amazon everywhere but you might wanna support local business wherever you go because if we as digital nomad community keep using the big 3 only we will end up with the world which looks the same everywhere we travel.

What we are trying to achieve with DgiCromad is to raise nomadic awareness about all the potential harms of Mc’Digitalnomadization of the world. Our buying and consuming habits insanely influence in shaping the economy and if you are not aware of that as a representative of our newly emerged social class you should read way more of our Transformative Experiences category. Buycotting and Boycotting are the most effective strategies for transforming the world because we are living in a market based society.

Buy Local & Recycle

Less words and more clicks these are the most popular LOCAL companies for online shopping:

Njuskalo.hr

  • Local ads website like Craigslist translated as sniffer 😊. It is first on recommendation list because you should try to recycle before buying new stuff both as digital nomad and as a regular citizen. Unfortunately the site is currently only available in Croatian but it is fairly easy to navigate and find your way around. Besides enjoying a huge regional popularity there is also a wide presence of ads from Slovenia, Bosnia and Serbia since the delivery can be organized very easy.

Facebook Marketplace

  • The same reason which puts the sniffer on top of our list works the same for Facebook which covers the highest percentage of users among all social networks in Croatia. Its Marketplace has been gaining a huge popularity in use lately so if language barrier is to much for you on Sniffer then go with Facebook Marketplace and try recycling instead of buying.

Bazaar.hr

  • Our local Amazon type web shop. Bazaar is a very young company started by a group of young enthusiasts and it grew from a startup to respectable brand name in just few years. There are plenty of options you can find there so it deserves a no.1 place on our list with ‘buy from a local’ criteria online shopping website

Links.hr

  • This one specialized for IT gear with widespread services and store support throughout the Croatia. Hopefully they translate their website to English soon

Mall.hr

  • This one is not locally owned but at least it is not a Amazon – it is owned by a Czech company so that is cool enough

And now the moment you have all been waiting for…

Amazon & Forwarding Companies

Unfortunately or fortunately as in the moment of writing this Amazon still does not fully deliver to Croatia. The nearest Amazon is located in Germany amazon.de for which not all retailers deliver to Croatia just like with amazon.co.uk, amazon.it (ok this one is actually closer than German on but still delivers to Croatia occasionally), amazon.fr and amazon.es.

The trick is to try and find a forwarding company which work simply by providing alternative local delivery address in Germany or Spain or whichever regional Amazon you are targeting and then they forward the packages you bought to your local address in Croatia or wherever you may be located. Most of them even offer stocking service so you can order a bunch of different stuff over a longer period of time and then they send it to you combined in one large package so you save on shipping. These are some of the currently most popular forwarding companies from Germany:

eBay

  • eBay works just fine here – you can narrow down your search to Europe (Item Location: Europe) and can be sure that you will avoid customs (although be aware that it may include sellers on European territory but outside of European Union).

Aliexpress

  • To some extent aliexpress.com is more popular than eBay or Amazon because a lot of people figured out that you can find the same and cheaper items sold by the Chinese company and delivered at minimum or no cost. Very tempting stock with potentially devastating impact on the environment and world economy…

Wherever you shop keep in mind all the details about European Union and Croatian customs policy and VAT application and read how it works in this article.

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