Last of the big spenders

ALGERIANS are snapping up practically everything on offer in Alicante City’s summer sales.

Business-owners are buying up clothes, videogames and computer products for resale in Algeria, spending an average of €500 each. They are valued customers and El Corte Ingles has interpreters as well as signs and placards in Arabic.

Algerian clients love buying at low prices and they buy in quantity, said Jose Antonio Maseda, regional manager of El Corte Ingles: “When they like something they take all the stock back with them.”

They also descend on smaller shops in the city centre, said Vicente Armengol, president of the Corazon de Alicante Association.  Unlike the Russians, Algerians look for low prices, especially when buying in bulk for the domestic market, he maintained.

The weekend ferries bring another type of Algerian customer, not business people, but the middle-classes with middle-range budgets.  

Algerians are the second-biggest spenders in the city shops, overtaken only by the Russians who are renowned for not looking at price tags. Next are the more cautious French, followed by clients from Norway, Sweden and Britain.