Stg to € - can newsagent charge what they like?

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my2leftfeet

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Are prices of newspapers/magazines fixed? e.g. if you buy a magazine - with STG£1 printed on cover as price chargeable in UK - are Irish newsagents obliged to convert to € amount or can they charge what they like?
 
I presume that retailers can charge what they like since there are no price controls on magazines etc. as far as I know.
 
I think different rates of VAT are charged on magazines / Newspapers / Books. Also many retailers buy sterling forward to offset the effects of currency changes. At least that is what they used to say in the past
 
It's just that they (newspapers) are the same price everywhere, which I find kind of odd considering the disparites between the price of milk, or a can of coke, in various shops.
 
[broken link removed] in relation to "Agreements between The Irish Times Limited and newspaper retailers allegedly fixing the retail price of The Irish Times newspaper" might be of interest.
 
Can't find anything about price controls on newspapers in Ireland so I presume that there are none notwithstanding the fact that most or all retailers charge the same price.
 
Thanks RainyDay. I'll have a read of that document. I see that the Irish Times does indeed have a recommended price at the bottom of the front page (along with the Price at the top).
 
As far as I remember from working in a shop as a teenager - the UK stuff came in with a price list of Irish prices (recommended retail prices anyway) which were always used. We didn't just make the prices up (as we did for a lot of stuff). Generally, for items that are available in a lot of different places the prices tended to be the same all over.
 
i used to buy the scattish daily record every day and it was 35p sterling and 57 cnet euro, a month ago they stopped printing the euro price and then started charging 80 cent for it and started printing the 80 cent on it even though the sterling price was still 35 p
 
There's a shocking mark-up on magazines in Easons and the like which I doubt can be accounted for with VAT alone. I've found there's a massive saving to be made by simply subscribing to my favorites (even after paying for airmail).
 
Re: Stg to € - can newsagent charge what they like?

eurofan
there is a downside with subscriptions= (an post) they may never arrive
 
johnwilliams said:
eurofan
there is a downside with subscriptions= (an post) they may never arrive
Click to expand...

Well recent An Post problems aside (i've had many packages delayed) I currently subscribe to three UK magazines and almost always get them before they appear in the shops here.
 
Re: Stg to € - can newsagent charge what they like?

i was getting a weekly magazine by subscription for a number of years no problem .middle of last year it stopped coming, got onto publishers to find out what was wrong. they told me the post office could not find the address
thing is i am still at the same address now as i was then ,figure that one out?
 
The markup on sterling magazines in Ireland is shocking. As far as I know it is made up of a few parts
- VAT difference
- Cost of importing ( as far as I am aware this is not absorbed by the publishers and is added on)
- PROFIT
 
AFAIK, there are two companies involved in impoering magazines,etc from aborad ( I think Easons is one of them) and they provide a ready reckoner of how stg prices should be refelcted in euros. It bears absolutely no relationship to the normal exchange rate and has a generous built in cushion against fluctuations.

If I recall correctly, the Competition Authority in its early days sought to do something about what, on the face of it, looks like price fixing. But I think the addition of the catch-all term "recommended price" overcame the legal hurdle. In other words, retailes are fre to charge less, but in reality, they just refer to the ready reckoner.
 
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