In Poland the traditional general chains are:
– Media Expert – has been criticized for 10+ years of its rather cringey advertising,
– Media Markt – far more focused on big shopping malls and major metro areas than the others,
– Neonet – basically doesn’t exist in big cities,
– RTV Euro AGD – started out named Euro, but had its name changed because of people [misintepreting the signage](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/RTV_EURO_AGD_logo.png).
They have recently been joined by Komputronik, which went from computer hardware and software to selling all kinds of consumer electronics and appliances (even washers and refrigerators).
These stores also face more specific competitors – x-kom (which only sells electronics, no appliances), brand stores of Xiaomi, Samsung and Sony, plus iSpot (basically a semi-official Apple Store).
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Media Markt is the largest brick-and-mortar store, but ever since COVID more and more webshops have taken over the mantle, the most famous being eMag.
TESCO also had a good electronics section in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but it has reduced it somewhat.
There is also a chain called Euronics, but it was more prominient in the 2000s, now it’s known to be pretty shitty and is rumored to be owned by a Scientologist (religion which believes in UFOs and avoids taxes).
* Harvey Norman (Australian)
* DID Electrical (Irish)
* Currys (UK)
* PowerCity (Irish)
* Expert (Swiss owned symbol group of Irish independent retailers)
Other than that they’re either small and totally independent. There are a couple of online retailers too.
It has mainly been:
* Elgiganten both online and physical stores – Exists everywhere else in the nordics to under various names such as Elkjöp, Gigantti, Elko, Elrisin, Pisiffik.
* Komplett only online – Exists in Denmark and Norway as well.
* Netonnet both online and physical stores – Pretty sure Netonnet is only in Sweden although Komplett Group bought Netonnet last year still seperate tho.
* Elon both online and physical stores – Only in Sweden.
* Media Markt both online and physical stores – They’re exiting the Swedish market this year and all stores will be sold to Power
* Power online but soon also physical stores – They exist in Norway, Finland and Denmark already with physical stores while they only had online precense in Sweden until now when they’re taking over Media Markt.
Worten – one of the largest chains in the country, owned by the retail megaconglomerate Sonae.
I don’t have data on this, but I think they’re the largest in the country.
They also expanded into Spain, when they bought Boulanger and PC City, but they have sold them to MediaMarkt since, keeping only physical stores in the Canaries. They also have an online store, and own the brands Kunft, Mitsai and Becken.
Rádio Popular – another one of the big chains, they have over 50 stores, as well as an online store. Unlike Sonae, they’re an independent company.
Fnac – another big chain, they’re a French chain that sells not only electronics and appliances, but also cultural items like books. They also have an online store. They are often located on shopping malls.
MediaMarkt – a German store. They have stores on the largest cities, and an online store. They’re not as big as the other ones.
PC Diga – they don’t have many physical stores, their business is mainly online. They also focus on electronics, although they also sell appliances too.
Box – it’s a store owned by the Auchan supermarkets, and that’s where they’re usually found.
Local smaller stores – there’s still a lot of local small stores where people by electronics and home appliances.
Media Markt, Saturn, and Euronics. Though, I have to say that their online stores look awefully similar, they just have different colours.
MediaMarkt is by far the biggest one I think.
We also have CoolBlue which used to be online-only but has been opening physical stores the past few years as well. It’s getting bigger and bigger, competing with MediaMarkt now.
There are some smaller chains like BCC and Expert as well, but they seem to be in decline.
We used to have some Saturn stores too, but I don’t think they’re around anymore.
Next to that we have some online stores who sell electronics next to other things, like bol.com or Amazon. Some supermarkets, especially Lidl, also sell electronics this way.
And then there’s the smaller chains of phone companies who mainly sell phones and attributes, such as Vodafone, KPN, TMobile, etc.
In Italy it’s Euronics. Real brick and mortar stores that have what you need if you’re prepared to pay more for it.
Big Bang. That’s it. And then there’s Harvey Norman that also has furniture and Merkur with other stuff. And then there’s smaller stuff, parts of bigger stores.
– Media Markt & Saturn (they belong together)
– Expert (smaller stores and a bit more staff members per store, at least to my experience)
Physical stores : Nay, Okay, Planeo and Datart.
Online stores : Alza(they got physical stores, but only for picking up stuff you order online/complaints) and Mall.
In Belgium there are a few big ones:
* Media Markt – same as everybody else
* Vandenborre – going out of style, but still exists
* Coolblue – mostly restricted to Flanders and Brussels, no Walloon stores.
* Krefel – has existed for a while, but lately trying to go to Coolblue way by offering free overnight shipping and delivery folks on very visible blue cargo bikes.
In Romania it’s these:
* Altex – One of the most known stores. (has physical stores)
* Media Galaxy – Owned by Altex, same prices, same products. (has physical stores)
* eMag – Romania’s Amazon, has everything. It has only online shopping.
* Flanco – One of the oldest? (has physical stores)
..and more that I forgot.
In France it’s usually something like:
* Darty
* Boulanger
* FNAC
* LDLC
And of course whatever you happen to stumble across online.
We have elgiganten and power (which is relatively new). Back in the day we also had one called fona. The first two are much like media markt, while fona was more of a normal store that just happened to specialise in media and electronics – it wasn’t as large as the others, and it was a bit more orderly
* Mediaworld –> this is media markt rebranded for our country
* Unieuro
* Euronics
* Trony
* Expert
Basically, the most known is Mediaworld, the others are less known and they also franchise with smaller stores. So you can find the big stores near the various cities and the smaller ones in the biggest municipalities.
These are the traditional ones otherwise there are these two online with a lot smaller ones:
* Monclick (that is part of Unieuro)
* eprice
I’m sure I’m forgetting some of these.
The 3 most common ones are Gigantti, Power and Verkkokauppa.com.
Gigantti is Swedish, Power is Norwegian and Verkkokauppa.com (their name is literally Online store.com lol) is Finnish.
And yes Gigantti is obviously the worst one with studid high prices and terrible customer service.
* Mvideo/Eldorado (used to be two separate chains until Eldorado was bought out by Mvideo) – probably the largest chain(s).
* DNS – mostly PC stuff but sell appliances, too.
* Citilink – similar to DNS.
* Technopark – probably the rarest one.
And many smaller, local chains, brand stores and online shops. We also used to have Media Markt, too, but it eventually closed down.