can shop bought potatoes be used as seed potatoes

we've done this before, because we liked a variety so much ("Linda", now called "Bellana" I think, and we used to buy them all the time in N. Germany)
It worked ok, but I've no idea if shop-bought seed potatoes would work better?
We just chose the ones with the most eyes/shoots, and kept them in an eggbox in the light until they'd sprouted a bit further.
Why not give it a go?

Sorry to contradict Weeding but all the books i've read say definatly NOT to use shop bought potatoes for growing as they don't grow to type etc. and can spread disease.
Your a bit late for starting potaotes now, I should leave it until very early spring next year. I start looking for my seed pots around the end of Feb time and try to get them in at the begining of April (but I do have a very sheltered garden with no or very little frost!)

maybe that so where you are ian but here we just take a potato with plenty of eyes right out of a bag of potatoes and put it in the original paper bag that the potatoes came in and leave it not on the windowsill but somewhere close so it can get some heat from the sun and light sometime early spring , about for tweo weeks take a look at the potato and if it has roots coming from the eyes then your good to go it does always work because some potatoes have disease but if it is good it will take so you might want to do a couple of potaoes in brown paper bags with holes in it so you have a better chance of getting some plants to start out good luck

Thanks for that Lovegreen but if a potato is carrying blight then it will germinate and grow normally and the first you know about it is when everything turns brown and mushy. I guess its all about how much rain you get, are you in a dry state or do you get lots of rain (which is the trigger for blight)

i dont think im in a dry state but kind of in between wee certainly get our fair share of rain. i live on the east coast of the states. my mother in law and myself put soil half filling a 5 gallon bucket put the potato and fil it the rest of the way we have luck every time