On the hunt for a new phone? What about the next best-selling book or a new pair of shoes? For those in Latin America, Submarino offers amazing deals on highly sought products.

About Submarino

Submarino is part of a larger company called B2W. It formed as a merger between Submarino.com and Americanas.com, two of Latin America’s largest online retailers. B2W now owns Americanas.com, Shoptime.com, Soubarato.com, and, of course, Submarino.

Submarino is a shining star among its accompanying companies. It has operations in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina, with plans to expand to the United States, India, China, and Uruguay. Submarino might have a fighting chance in these highly competitive countries because of its effortless user experience.

The first thing customers will see when shopping at Submarino is the sheer amount of options they have. Customers can peruse the following categories:

Books

Games and PC Gamer

Cell phones

TV, Audio and Home Theater

Computing

Fashion

Sports and leisure

Home Appliances and Home

Furniture and decoration

Beauty and Perfumery

Services, Card and Partners

Travels

 
The last one may be bemusing for those who are unfamiliar with how Prime works, but it’s essentially an upgraded Submarino service for paying customers. In its separate category, Prime subscribers can see what special deals await them for using the service.

No matter what category you choose, Submarino offers only the best products at a competitive price. Submarino even beats its sister websites in certain products. For example, an Acer Aspire 5 laptop costs R $2,799 on Submarino, but it’s nearly R $200 more on Americanas and Shoptime. While all companies promise the best deals, it seems Submarino delivers most often.

Submarino is available online and through a mobile app. The company gives features like discount notifications and package tracking services on their app, so customers may be better off using it over the website. However, both give customers everything they need to access Submarino’s excellent attributes.

Best Submarino Features

Submarino’s top feature is how well it keeps prices low and secure for shoppers. There’s no need to worry about finding a lightning deal or rushing to scoop up coupons before they disappear. While those features are nice, lacking them provides a more relaxed shopping experience.

This isn’t to say that Submarino won’t give their customers any sort of deals at all. Customers can find various percentages taken off of popular items in televisions, home goods, and kitchen appliances.

You can sign up for a Submarino card to track purchases and make sure you get rewarded for being a loyal customer. There’s also the AME app to pay for purchases while saving money. You can get up to 15% of your money back when you use the app long enough.

In addition to providing amazing items and money-saving options, Submarino also offers useful services as well. Submarino customers can buy theft insurance for their gadgets in case the item gets stolen or the owner breaks it beyond usability.

Customers can also have their warranty extended on a variety of products, such as cell phones and home appliances. Submarino will also install air conditioning units into people’s homes, help install electronics, provide car insurance, and even dispose of large items such as couches and recliners so customers don’t have to throw them in a dumpster.

While its wares and services are certainly impressive, I have to applaud Submarino for its book section. First off, it’s massive. The list for the book categories they have just keeps going and going, and there’s no shortage of masterful writers donning their books page. A few notable mentions include Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Rick Riordian, and George R.R. Martin.

Submarino’s book section spans widely across multiple genres and price points, and you can easily get a complete series for a great price. However, you’ll find almost all the categories on Submarino, including televisions, smartphones, video games, and clothes, span nearly as widely as the books do. Submarino’s mission is simple: diversity.

With anything you want, you’re bound to get a variety of options in that section. And all the options are going to be top-notch.

Submarino may offer a variety of products, but each item comes straight from the manufacturer (unless you buy refurbished products, of course). Submarino is not trying to BS you or waste your time. They want you to have the best experience possible using their services, and they intend on delivering.

However, despite the company’s prowess and devotion to creating the best results for their customers, there are a few things Submarino falls short on. Nothing is majorly damning for the company, but they can certainly put a damper on some parts of using Submarino.

Criticisms of Submarino

The company’s prices are dirt cheap and a godsend for people who want to stock their homes with affordable appliances, gadgets, and other necessary items.

However, Submarino could use a little work in the aesthetics of its website. For example, its main color scheme is navy blue and orange. Though the complementary pairing on the color scheme means the two colors should theoretically work, they don’t. The site looks somewhat amateurish and unprofessional.

Aside from aesthetics, the website’s coloring makes it hard to use. Amid the blue top of the website are tabs to various shopping categories — downloading the Submarino app, opening up a Submarino cashback card, and the Submarino travel booking website.

However, the tabs can be hard to see depending on if you’re reading the original Portuguese text or not. The Portuguese words are in white, making for an acceptable viewing experience, but if you require a translation service to understand the tabs, the lettering goes gray and all but disappears inside the blue text.

I can hear you now. “Submarino is based in Brazil! Of course it’s going to have Portuguese!” But Submarino is also one of the top online retailers in Latin America, where Portuguese is not the only language spoken. Spanish is the number one language, along with smaller sects of French, Dutch, and English.

There can be non-Portuguese speaking customers attempting to use the site and finding it difficult because of the wonky tab lettering. These color patterns might make it difficult for the elderly or color-impaired users to use the website without assistance, which is not good for such a major company.

It should be said that the color scheme on the accompanying smartphone app works leaps and bounds better than the online website. The app looks much prettier in comparison, so the poor website aesthetic may be the company’s attempt to spur users to get the app instead. Still, I think both platforms should have high aesthetic value, and at the very least not be hard to read.

Submarino’s debilitating color scheme is especially disappointing considering how well its sister companies lay out theirs. Shoptime.com has an orange and purple logo but doesn’t base its website off it. If anything, orange and purple are accents to an overall white website. Americanas.com fairs much better, with red and oranges creating an energetic vibe.

That’s not the only thing the sister companies do better. Submarino offers fewer items than Shoptime or Americanas. Shoptime nearly inundates customers with the number of categories it offers, and Americanas follows suit. Submarino certainly doesn’t offer an empty store, but compared to the other companies, Submarino may appear a little lacking.

This doesn’t mean that Submarino isn’t a popular contender for Latin American online shopping. Especially compared with its low prices, Submarino may simply be taking the “quality over quantity” route more seriously than its sister companies.

Customer Reviews of Submarino

Customers tend to have positive experiences with Submarino. As with any retail company, some have reported delivered products failing to reach up to the customer’s expectations or arriving late, but these negative instances are relatively rare.

Submarino has high ratings on Trustpilot, one of the top customer review sites on the web, despite few customers reviewing. The company also sports a 4.2 out of 5 rating on the Google play store, where nearly 70,000 people left reviews.

The sheer amount of people reporting positive experiences with the company means potential customers will fare well using Submarino services too.

Final Thoughts

Submarino is a high-quality online retailer providing excellent service to its customers. They provide hundreds of products in dozens of categories, offer Submarino Prime services to help customers get quick shipping and amazing deals, and even offer a cashback rewards system so loyal customers can make back some of the money they spend at the company.

While Submarino’s website could be designed better, the company has designed its business to provide its customers with only the best experience. Whether it’s shopping, using one of Submarino’s many services, or even booking your next flight with Submarino’s travel affiliate, you get hassle-free and cost-efficient results.

If you’re in Latin America and looking around for your next favorite website, look no further than Submarino.