In a world where every online store needs to compete with the likes of Amazon, Shoptime offers high-quality products at affordable prices, making it one of the best online stores in Latin America.

What is Shoptime?

Shoptime is a Brazilian television channel specializing in home shopping. Founded in November of 1995, Shoptime soon rose to become one of the most-watched shopping channels in Brazil.

Shoptime offers a variety of products in nearly too many categories to list. To list a few, there are:

Its start as a television shopping channel limited the number of products customers could view at once, but the online store concentrates the products into one accessible place. Customers can view the products, their prices, and what customers have to say about it.

The diversity of products is what keeps customers coming back to Shoptime. Though mostly marketed to a Brazilian audience, anyone can enjoy shopping at Shoptime because they offer these key features.

What Shoptime Offers

One of the features that differentiate Shoptime from other online megastores in Brazil is Shoptime’s Prime services. Shoptime Prime is exclusive unlimited free shipping and fast delivery on all prime products.

Under Prime, there are no minimum orders customers must purchase and no order limit. Prime subscribers may also receive exclusive offers to help them save money and the option to receive a two-day delivery for selected items.

To discuss the elephant in the room, yes, Shoptime Prime sounds like the online shopping behemoth Amazon, but Amazon has not entrenched itself into the Latin American economy (though they’re certainly trying to.) However, it seems the Amazon shopping and delivery model has certainly resonated with Shoptime, giving users a comparable experience.

However, there are some things Shoptime does better. Shoptime only offers authentic products — there are no knock-off filler pieces from China as one would see on Amazon. Whether it’s a book, a video game, or a smartphone, the product is guaranteed to get to the customer new and in original packaging.

Users don’t have the option to sell items second-hand, though entrepreneurs may decide to sell their wares on Shoptime instead of opening up their e-stores. The popularity and size of Shoptime mean small business owners get a boost when selling their wares, and could get them a foot in the door to progress to a larger business model.

Shoptime also offers products with time-limited discounts, in which after a certain amount of hours that discount will go away for that product. Customers can get bedsheets, food mixers, even smartphones at incredible deals if they act fast enough.

Along with time-limited discounts, Shoptime also offers amazing coupons for its customers as well. For example, at the time of writing this article, Shoptime had a coupon R $200 for iPhones. The iPhone wasn’t the newest model, but if someone were hoping to get a cheap deal on a brand new phone, finding this coupon would have been a wonderful turn of luck.

Lastly, Shoptime offers cashback rewards. When a customer signs up for the card, they get back a little bit of the money they spend at Shoptime, essentially saving money as they spend. Loyal customers could save thousands of dollars the cumulative effects of the cashback, making loyalty an excellent investment for those who see themselves using Shoptime long-term.

Shoptime provides quick, easy service on a variety of products. There’s never a shortage of deals, for both general customers and Prime subscribers. If you’re buying from abroad, the prices could seem rather cheap, considering the price exchange. However, let’s see how the prices for the same product compare across other websites.

How Expensive is Shoptime?

We found the same 5-pack of towels on Shoptime as on Americanas, another massive online retail company. The towels on Americanas.com cost nearly R $20 more than Shoptime. After looking throughout Shoptime and Americans, Shoptime appears to be substantially cheaper while offering essentially the same products.

While Shoptime is cheaper than other companies, this isn’t to say that Shoptime can’t itself at times be expensive depending on the customer’s budget. But given the other options, Shoptime proves itself to be the most affordable online shopping networks in Brazil, though it might not compare to an international user’s local stores.

And it must be noted that Shoptime Prime users will have a cheaper experience, despite paying the Prime subscription fee. Shoptime users can get up to 20% off the same product a non-Prime user could buy, making a Shoptime Prime customer one of the best deals for Shoptime enthusiasts.

Overall, Shoptime offers products cheaper than similar companies and provides ways to further cut down the price. The Shoptime Prime membership along with good luck in snagging a coupon or the time-limited deal could mean customers get massive savings on products they were already seeking to buy or new and intriguing products at an incredible deal.

A company finding such awesome ways to keep its prices low certainly sounds too good to be true. There have to be some cons to using such a pro company, right?

Bad Parts of Shoptime

The company has certainly devoted much of its efforts to create the best customer service experience possible, but some things have still slipped through the cracks.

For example, some customers have reported the Shoptime app becoming slow and unresponsive. No one likes to be near the end of a great time-limited deal only to have their apps not work, becoming unable to get that deal. Some customers have, unfortunately, reported such situations. Though rare, it’s still an unfortunate experience to encounter.

While Shoptime makes great efforts to keep their prices low as much as possible, consumers have to wonder where their products are coming from. Such cheap products must be making up the price somewhere, as in the laborer wages in which the products were made in or the surrounding environments near that product’s manufacturing site.

There is little describing Shoptime’s worker rights or environmental footprint. To be fair, though, it seems that all major companies mistreat workers or the environment to keep prices low, so it’s not necessarily Shoptime’s fault for doing so.

Still, if a customer hopes to shop ethically, the lack of information and transparency about the company’s business practices mean some conscientious consumers might have to avoid shopping at Shoptime.

What Customers Say About Shoptime

Customers think highly of Shoptime. Some have described outliers where they purchased a product a product online, but it never arrived, items arriving broken, or items getting delivered past the expected date. While unfortunate, every major company has had such situations, especially companies at the magnitude of Shoptime.

Most customers, though, sing praises for Shoptime, describing the company’s low price, fast customer service, and speed of delivery. The ubiquity of the Shoptime online store and smartphone app means people can always see when Shoptime lists time-limited deals, along with beneficial coupons and other ways to save money.

Even on highly trusted Brazilian customer review websites like Buscape and Reclame Aqui, Shoptime rates highly. The company has consistently proved itself to be committed to providing customers the best services possible and keeping customer satisfaction in mind.

Final Thoughts

Shoptime rates highly on review sites for a reason: Shoptime delivers on its promise to be one of the cheapest retail stores in Brazil. Shoptime’s immense selection of products means any customer can find something they like, and the constant low prices mean people won’t be breaking the bank every time they shop at Shoptime.

Shoptime Prime services, discounts, time-limited deals, and coupons mean customers continue to find ways to save money. Shoptime understands their customers seek the best products at the lowest prices, so offering these money-saving services mean they can do it better than Amazon and other global retail companies.

Aside from selling cheap products and delivering them to customers quickly, Shoptime also allows their customers to become business leaders themselves. People can sign up to sell goods on Shoptime, making a profit from the trusted and popular company. If someone’s looking to start a side hustle or grow their business, Shoptime provides an excellent first step.

Shoptime may not be perfect — some technical glitches mean people might miss deals or opacity in business operations may make customers question the company’s ethics. However, when it comes to getting cheap, affordable products in Brazil, Shoptime is comparable to none.

The company has been one of the leading Brazilian retails stores for years, and we recommend people find out for themselves how excellent Shoptime is.