Advice re. buying a new iPad...a bit complicated!

It’s simple.
Make sure iCloud is backed up.
As soon as you set up the new one ( it won’t make any difference if you buy it UK or France)
You just log in to iCloud and transfer all the data.

I would by one closer to home, I bought an Apple I-pad last December from my local Curries-PC world store, It has had to be returned twice due to connection softwear faults, each time returned by their customer services department back to the Apple repair depot.
If you lived some considerable distance from a branch of the suppling dealer, you may struggle to get any issues sorted out under warantee should a problem arise.

If it’s just a WiFi enabled iPad then it can be used anywhere , it doesn’t matter where you bought it . The last one or two I bought whilst in the USA no issues at all .

Basically there is nothing much in the pack about the setup. As soon as you select the language it is just the same as one bought in the UK. We have an ipad each so used the other one to check what to do, but otherwise could find that info and print it before you swap.
I think with the ipad (I have a mini5) that we did it from the icloud, but when I changed my phone I just held it over the new one and it captured the information. The only pain here is that our bandwidth is pathetic and the downloads took all night. ?

Thank you for your replies. This has been on my mind!
Mamie, I bought the iPad in the UK because I was staying there for three months and needed to buy one. Plus, I have a UK and French bank acc and an address in The Scottish Borders so it was easy to get started over there. Your post is very reassuring. Thank you.

Why would you buy it in the UK Carillion01. I bought mine in France and set it up with my Apple account which has to be the French Apple store because of the French address on my bank details. I set the language to English and backed it up from my old one. You get the right kind of plug too. ?

As long as you have the WIFI password it shouldn’t be any difficulty, if you want to transfer all your data from an old IPAD it gets complicated.
Basically backup your old IPAD to ICloud and it should transfer, follow the instructions and if it doesn’t work reset and start again.

I've always found Apple customer support incredibly helpful whether in store or online. Why not contact them for the information you need?

My advise is to buy an apple I pad maybe a little more
expensive but I have taken mine on a world cruise and had no
problems the settings facility is great