Where electronics are cheapest in Chisinau: 17 stores ranked

"Where are electronics cheapest in Chisinau?" Everyone has their own answer: a favourite store, a salesperson they know. We decided to answer with numbers. The short answer is "it depends on what you are buying", but you can name the stores that win more often than others.

How we built the ranking

We took every product in the PriceList.md catalog that was in stock in at least three stores on 31 October 2026. For each product we found the lowest price and noted which store had it. Then, for each store, we calculated two figures:

• share of lowest prices: how often the store has the lowest price among all stores that carry the product;
• median markup: how far the store's typical price sits above the lowest one.

Only in-stock products with prices checked in the last three days were included, and only one price per store, the lowest. Prices that looked like errors were removed.

Which store in Chisinau is cheapest most often?

The main limitation of the ranking is that product ranges differ. Gorilla has only 21 products in the comparison, mostly phones, while Neocomputer and XStore have over 200 each. A high share for a small store means it is cheap in its niche, not across the board.

Where it is most often expensive

In our sample Maximum does not have a single lowest price out of 52 products, and its median markup is 26.3%: a typical price there is roughly a quarter above the market's lowest. Bomba (13.6%) and BigShop (13.0%) also sit well above the minimum. That does not mean everything there is expensive; on some products the price can be competitive, especially during promotions. But it is worth checking before you buy.

Who has the most lowest prices in absolute numbers

Look at the count instead of the share and the picture changes. XStore has the most lowest prices, 77 products, followed by Neocomputer (59), Cactus (53) and Smart (42). Gorilla and Cactus together hold the lowest price on only 72 of the 393 products, about 18%. For another 42 products the lowest price is shared by two or more stores.

The most telling conclusion: to buy each of the 393 products at its lowest price you would have to visit 16 of the 17 stores. The only store that was never the cheapest is Maximum. That is why a "favourite store" almost never guarantees the best price: you have to compare each product separately.

Where it is cheapest in each category

The leader for phones and the leader for gaming peripherals are different stores. If you are buying a phone and a mouse, it may pay to get them from two different places.

Some specific products

On the iPhone 16 128 GB the gap between Gorilla and the most expensive offer is 5,392 lei. On the Galaxy S26 Ultra 256 GB, Cactus is 10,900 lei cheaper than the most expensive store. And the Logitech G102 mouse is cheapest not at the ranking leaders but at Atehno. More on price gaps in Price gaps between stores: almost 11,000 lei.

Does a lower price mean a better store?

No, and we would not advise choosing a store by the price tag alone. Before paying, check at least four things:

1. Warranty. Who provides it (the manufacturer, the official distributor or the store itself) and for how long.
2. Availability. "To order" and "in stock" are different things; our comparison counts only the latter.
3. Delivery and pickup. Free delivery can eat up part of the difference if another store charges for it.
4. Receipt and returns. The consumer protection inspectorate reminds buyers to keep the receipt and purchase documents. Without them it is harder to return a product or get it repaired.

How many price cuts each store made at the end of October

We counted confirmed cuts per store between 16 and 31 October (excluding 1-leu adjustments): XStore 45, Darwin 44, BigShop 25, PandaShop 22, Topsale 16, Bomba 12, Neocomputer 11, Cactus 10, Enter 10, Atehno 9, Maximum 3, GSMShop 3, Smadshop 2, Gorilla 1, Smart 1. A few examples:

Lots of cuts do not mean the lowest price. After their cuts, 15 of Topsale's 16 reduced products became the cheapest offer for that product, while at BigShop only 3 of 25 did. We left out offers that appeared and vanished within the same week: what matters to a buyer is a price that stays, not one that flickers.

How to find the lowest price before Black Friday

The ranking moves: stores revise prices every day, and in November especially often. The safest approach is to open the page of the specific product in the PriceList.md catalog right before you buy. It shows every store that has it in stock and the price history. Not every store in Moldova is in our catalog: Ultra, for example, has already announced Black Friday 2026 with discounts "of up to −70%", but it is not part of this comparison. How to prepare for the sale is in Black Friday 2026 in Moldova: dates and practical tips, and how to spot a fake discount is in Fake Black Friday discounts: how to check the price.