I found the Santos Carrefour. It was further away than I expected from the beach, but the walk wasn’t too bad. I am starting to feel like I’ve walked a good distance today, though.
It’s closing in on 3 years since the last time I was in a Carrefour. We used to shop at them all the time when we lived in France, so it was interesting to go to another one after all this time.
The store itself is laid out almost exactly like the ones in France, although the books/CD/DVD section is much smaller overall. They carry a good size electronics selection, but like everywhere else I’ve been here in Brazil, the prices are insanely high. I think this is due to high import taxes on electronic goods, a problem that my employer has run into here a time or two. To make matters worse, the prices on the tag indicate not how much the item is, but how much per month the item costs if you use the Carrefour shopping card. I saw a 26-inch LCD TV, which would sell in the US for $400, that was marked R$100 (~$70). But when you read the fine print, that’s how much it costs you per month for 12 months, meaning the real price is R$1200 (~$800!!!).
The grocery section of the store sort of confirmed what I had obeserved in the grocery store near my hotel: Brazilians must be crazy about cheese and other dairy. The total amount of dairy in the store easily was the equal of the huge dairy sections in French groceries. There is lots of cheese and a huge variety of yogurt. In fact, to judge by the size of the fresh cheese packages on the shelves, Brazilians must be huge fans of cheese.
There is a large variety of meats available as well, with the largest portion being beef products. Anyone who’s ever eaten in a Brazilian restaurant won’t be a bit surprised by this. There is no lack for protein, for sure.
The children’s toy section also confirmed another suspicion I had — even cheap toys in Brazil are expensive. I was amazed at the relative low quality and high prices of the toys on the shelves. For example, a hard plastic baby doll, poorly painted and cheap, that would be of the type to retail for no more than about $10 in the US cost about $40 here. higher quality toys are even more outrageously priced. I imagine that this pricing issue also has something to do with prohibitive import taxes.
