Shopify Agency in Madrid, Spain

Madrid is Spain's distribution centre before it is anything else. Sitting in the middle of the peninsula with motorways radiating in every direction, it is where national inventory lives — the logistics corridor along the A-2 through Coslada and San Fernando de Henares carries a large share of it, and the inland dry port at Coslada connects the city by rail to the seaports at Valencia, Barcelona and Bilbao. Barajas handles the air freight. Mercamadrid, on the southern edge of the city, is one of the largest fresh food wholesale markets in the world and anchors an enormous gourmet food trade, much of which now sells direct as well as to restaurants.

The consumer brand economy runs from the luxury retail spine of the Barrio de Salamanca down through the independent shops of Malasaña and Chueca, and out to the corporate and manufacturing base in Alcobendas and Getafe. The exportable categories are specific: extra virgin olive oil and cured products from a country that produces more olive oil than any other, footwear and leather goods carrying a made-in-Spain story that genuinely sells abroad, cosmetics and perfumery with a real manufacturing base behind it, home textiles and ceramics, and racket sports equipment — padel was invented in Mexico, but Spain is where it became a mass participation sport, and the brands, the tour and most of the equipment trade are still run from here, which makes it a live DTC category with a global audience. The calendar has its own rhythm: rebajas in January and summer, near-total shutdown in August, and Reyes on 6 January extending the gifting season a full week past where the rest of Europe ends it.