Scotch House

We visited Scotch House during our visit in July 2010. We bought hundreds of US dollars in gift items and they were to ship them to us. We still have never received that. If you call the shop, you get an answering machine. We have received 1 phone call in return from our many messages. It stated our shipment had been found in a container at the back of a shipping warehouse and our items would be here in 3 weeks. No such luck. More phone calls have not been returned. I am very disillusioned with Scotch House and their customer service.

Scotch House is yet another tourist tat shop on Princes Street. Expect to hear blaring bagpipe music and more tartan than you can shake a stick at.
For me, Scotch House is pretty pointless, but I do remember coming in here a few years back when I was going to teach English in Germany. I came in and bought some fridge magnets with Scottish slogans, postcards with Scottish pictures and a couple of flags too.
Unless you a tourist or someone who needs some Scottish themed tat, you probably won’t find the Scotch House of much interest but I suppose it serves it’s purpose.

In general, I avoid these sorts of shops in Edinburgh. I’m not a big fan of the music blaring out onto the street, and would prefer it if they just played it inside, like any normal shop. Despite this, I ventured inside to see what’s what.
This shop has a prime location on Princes Street, being pretty much right next to House of Fraser, at the junction between Princes Street and Lothian Road. It has a massive selection of all sorts of Scottish gifts and novelties. You could get nearly any souvenir of the country you can think of here. Clan crests, kilts, bagpipes, haggis whistles, «Jimmy» hats… the list just keeps going on.
It was an amusing wander around here, seeing the sorts of things that tourists would lap up. A favourite of mine was the mouse mats that had Scots words on, like ‘numpty.’ I guess this is not surprising though, as I am an English graduate.
Anyway, tourists and (maybe) residents could while away a good bit of time in this surprisingly spacious store, and come away with a lifetime’s worth of tat.

Having never really latched onto the appeal of kilts, tartan or anything mildly Scottish I was pretty pessimistic about my venture into the Scotch House.
Such a shop, managing to lay claim to a busy spot on a competitive Princes St, must have a decent selection of the said stuff.
Indeed, blurting a generic bag pipers cover CD and laden with a huge selection of historical Scottish attire the Scotch House is a pretty comprehensive supplier of all things Scottish and for this it deserves credit. Prices occasionally baffle me but nonetheless I can’t imagine tourists turning down a souvenir or two.