extreme bureaucracy: registration required to go shopping in Brazil (CPF)

When in Brazil, I tried to buy something on Amazon.  It reached a tiny form demanding my CPF.  There was no explanation of what this was.  I found out later that you have to register, and get a CPF number, in order to be able to shop in Brazil.

Most in-person shops don't ask for it, but they can.

I never got as far as registering for a CPF.  I did find an electronics mega-market, of sorts, at Av Rio Branco 156.  You can search for the product you want at some web site, beforehand.  You get prices, and the address of the stall / shop.  There are two more levels of address within Av Rio Branco 156: loja and st.  For example, maybe supernova is at loja 206 st 14.

Despite the market's size, the range is pretty limited, especially for higher-quality items.  Name-brand items are several times normal prices because of import duties.  I was after a decent power USB-C charger for my laptop.  I'd travelled with just a travel USB-C power supply.  It could deliver enough power for just my laptop.  But not the laptop plus ethernet adapter, hdmi output, usb hub, external keyboard and mouse.  The battery level on the laptop would ever so gradually go down.  So I bought an Apple USB-C PSU at this market, and it was expensive.

If you have a backwards economy, why would you require registration to go shopping, and make imported electronics very expensive?  Because it's the other way round: they have a backwards economy because of this kind of crap, and much, much more crap like it.

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