shops that rip off with £ to € conversion

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paperclip

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i was reading about this in the paper the other day... but i actually got stung with it the other day, and i have to say i'm none too pleased.

i bought something in a well known shop on grafton street <Moderator note: potentially defamatory information removed>

anyway, there was 2 prices, £18 and €29.95

i knew at the time that this didn't sound right, but wasn't sure how much i was ripped off til now.... £18 is actually €22.76

so that's a mark up of almost 25% (is that right?) ..... that's really taking the......

i'll be writing a letter, do you think anything will come of it?
 
Probability not. There is a culture of people ripping each other off in this country.
Maybe if you point out to them that you will tell everyone that you know about this and urge them to boycott the shop they may listen but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

On a side note there was a Mitchelstown cheese promotion where they were offering sliced cheese for e1.50 or something.
I caught the manager of a nearby Spar ripping off the stickers and charging e2.50 I was shocked by how blatant he was.
 

i hear ye, i used to work in petrol station years ago, and the owner would do the same on "not for individual sale" stuff....

this is so blatent though
 
Do you want to include Supermarkets in this ?

( I was in N.I. a couple of weeks ago )

Here are a few examples

Tesco :

Persil non bio liquigel N.I. £2.30 ish R.O.I. Euro 5 something
Strong flour N.I. 90p (1.5kg) R.O.I. Euro 2.30 ( 2kg )


Lidl :

Cauliflowers N.I. 69p R.O.I. Euro1.69 ( IIRC )
 
Sorry guys - whats with the rip off?

You see the price? You choose to buy or not? You do buy - thats your choice. You don't buy - equally thats your choice.

I have to say I have a problem with the victim culture of consumers who will not shop around, who willingly part with their money and then cry wolf.

Business is business. Shops are in the business of making money. They are not there solely for your convenience. It is frankly none of your business what prices any shop charges. You vote with your feet and with your cash.

I don't shop in Marks and Spencers - I think the food is lovely but very overpriced. I choose not to shop there.




mf
 
theoneill said:
On a side note there was a Mitchelstown cheese promotion where they were offering sliced cheese for e1.50 or something.
I caught the manager of a nearby Spar ripping off the stickers and charging e2.50 I was shocked by how blatant he was.
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So what? Manufacturer RRPs are not contractually or legally binding on retailers as far as I know. If the retailer knew that the market would bear the €2.50 price then it was his prerogative to charge it.
paperclip said:
i hear ye, i used to work in petrol station years ago, and the owner would do the same on "not for individual sale" stuff....

this is so blatent though
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Are such "not for individual sale" notices contractually or legally binding on the retailer?
I totally agree.
 
There is no rule or law in Ireland or Europe that says you have to sell the same product at the same price in each country in which you sell. If you want you can charge £1.00 in London and €100 in Dublin for the same item.

Also, Eur to GBP exchange rates have been dropping drastically lately but I would doubt that retailers want to encur the overhead of reprinting, relabelling and repricing every item every time the exchange rate changes so they pick an exchange rate and stick with it for a period of time - sometimes they gain sometimes they loose.

As mf1 said - nobody forced you to buy!
 
If the exchange rates were swinging the other way the shops would be pretty quick to increase the prices wouldnt they?, so in my eyes it is a rip off that they are not passing on the savings to the customers.

We would be all blasting the financial institutions if they were doing the same and not passing on the savings on foreign exchange.
 

There is a not very subtle difference in the two scenarios.

mf
 
How about this one.

Irish Independent - Price €1.70.

Costs 75p which is only €1.27 in Northern Ireland.
 
RonanC said:
If the exchange rates were swinging the other way the shops would be pretty quick to increase the prices wouldnt they?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily - the price swing would have to be greater than the cost of reprinting, re-labelling and re-pricing each stock item before it would make economic sense for them to do so.

RonanC said:
so in my eyes it is a rip off that they are not passing on the savings to the customers.
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But nobody is being forced to accept the price or buy the product - there are alternatives, so it cannot be a rip off.

RonanC said:
We would be all blasting the financial institutions if they were doing the same and not passing on the savings on foreign exchange.
Click to expand...


Don't understand this - financial institutions are allowed charge different amounts for the same service in different countries if they wish - the annual service charge on my Irish AIB Current Account is not the same as the equivelant charge on my UK AIB Current Account.
 
And if anyone dared to call for wage levels in shops etc in Ireland to be capped at the equivalent UK levels, they would get their heads chopped off...
 
As regards the twin pricing being out of sync with the exchanges ........ if the shops had to follow market vagaries the prices may come to more ...... accounting for the extra staff to remove and relabel. Shop scene at 09.00 ...... check overnight prices and get stuck in. This would entail doing the whole stock. Welcome coffee/fag break at 11.45, Midday news ....... sterling moves up or down. DAMN! Start all over again!
 
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VAT in Ireland is 21%. VAT in the UK is 17.5%. These rates will be added onto the base price before a % is added for margin. This accounts for some disparity. Much higher rates of rent and wage costs (taken as a national average) also have to be factored in.

The bottom line though is that mf1 has hit the nail on the head; you don't like the price then don't buy it.
Are some people really so stupid that they think we can have a higher wages than the UK and not have higher prices for goods and services?
 
I fully agree that you can vote with your feet. I buy in M&S because the food is much better than in other places.

CSL says

How about this one.

Irish Independent - Price €1.70.

Costs 75p which is only €1.27 in Northern Ireland.
Click to expand...

I was surprised at the difference in the price of the Irish Times, but when you add the VAT and realise that sterling has weakened considerably recently, it's not that much out of kilter.

Irish Times
€1.80 (including VAT)
£1 (Northern Ireland)

£1 = €1.26
€1.26 + 21% VAT = €1.53

The equivalent price in Northern Ireland would be £1.18which will probably be the price when they next adjust the pricing.

Brendan
 
ClubMan said:
Are such "not for individual sale" notices contractually or legally binding on the retailer?
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Quite possibly - IIRC there are statutory requirements regarding the information that manufacturers have on each item being sold (ingredients etc.).
Where items are sold as multi-packs, that information is often only put down once. If one removes a single item from the multi-pack and sell it, not all the statutorily required information is given to the purchaser.
 
Those price tags are on a lot of items in the Newry brahches of Marks/Debenhams /Dunnes etc too. Some are way out of kilter with the new currency rates , however they were in all probability priced at the then rate of exchange , give or take a little. Interesting to see however if, when the new (say winter) ranges come into the shops they have adjusted accordingly.
 
Re: shops that rip off with £ to € conversion

I noticed in Prague , in a Debenhams store that the price tags had dual pricing in both Euro and Czech Crowns. The euro price was actually cheaper. There was an option to pay using Euro but in this case the crowns value was converted to Euro so it was always the higher price which applied. So thats one situation when we would actually have won out over a country with lower costs.
 
Most or all of the multi-packs that I have seen for sale were the normal regularly packaged individual item boxed or taped together. But perhaps you have a point there in some cases?
 
I know of a case where a product sold more when the price was increased so Irish people have only ourselves to blame.
 
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