If you are not from Scandinavia, the first thing that you get
upon arriving at Norway is the price shock! If you happen to take a taxi from OSLO
Gardermoen airport to city centre (approx.. 45 Km), at a weekend night, you will
realize the taxi fare (approx.. 900NOK ~ 100 GBP ~ 150 USD) is perhaps a
quarter of the airfare that you might have paid from your home country to reach
Norway.
Now
that once you are in Norway, you will perhaps do some shopping. Here I will
list some ways how you could make the most use of your Norwegian Kroner. Also
read my article Cost
of Living in Norway, to figure out cheap shopping for food/daily needs/grocery
items
- At least twice each year most shopping malls go for a clearance sale (called Markedsdag Salg). The sale is usually in month of April and September but could vary depending on each store. This is the time when you get massive discounts, often up to 80% off on selected items :D
- Few of the most popular big shopping malls are Oslo City, Byporten, Storo Størsenter, Bogstadaveien (This is a popular street with high end boutiques), Karl Johan Gate (The main shopping street in Oslo), House of Oslo and Aker Brygge (very expensive).
- H&M, Cubus, Dressman, Pm and Kaap Ahl are some of the clothing chains that often sell reasonably priced clothes and often have some clothing on sale, all the year around
- Din Sko is another shoe chain that often has good quality shoes on discount, while XXL usually offers discounted sportswear, shoes, jacket, etc.
- There are some stores that offer discounts all the year around and clothes and accessories are significantly cheaper than the usual market price. However, please note that this is usually the stock from last year, season, i.e., the clothing here is new but not contemporary fashion. One such store is named Outlet, (Take T-Bane 3 to Mortensrud, the shop is located on 3rd floor at the shopping senter on top of the metro station)
- If you so prefer, second hand clothing, can be bought at Fretex and UFF
- Try subscribing to newsletter from super market chains such as Coop, Kiwi, Smart Club, Rema 1000, Rimi, ICA, Meny etc. They all have different items on sale each week and could offer significant savings
- For all your furniture/home decor needs, IKEA is perhaps the best destination (It’s a huge place and they sell quite a variety of stuff). Tip: IKEA offers a free bus shuttle every hour, from Oslo Sentralstasjon
- You could also buy very cheap second hand furniture, utensils from Fretex store located at Alnabru (Take bus 66 from Helsfyr T-Bane), The same bus also goes to IKEA.
- For electronics and virtually any possible daily house hold needs, try visiting Clas Ohlson. They have like an enormous range of different products and a very friendly staff.
- If you are looking for further bargains, there is a flea market at Grønland (Take exit Busterminal Grønland outside Grønland T-Bane) every Saturday (10:00-17:00) that sells a variety of stuff: Furniture, Utensils, Interior Décor, Electronics, Shoes, Laptop, Mobiles, Gadget, etc. Most products are second-hand, some are new, while some could be stolen. You have been cautioned, choose wisely and bargain hard.
- Last but not the least, there’s always finn.no for all your needs. Tip: On Finn homepage,
- Torget -> Til Salgs : This is the section, where you find what people are selling
- Torget -> Gis Bort : This is the section, where people are giving away the products for free (Yes Free!). The reason this is so that it is difficult to discard old products, when people buy new ones, since you can’t dump your large waste/defected products with regular garbage and therefore people prefer if somebody needy could pick these products from their place.
Lykk til :)
