Pricewatch »

• Pub price freeze – is it enough?

  December 1, 2008 @ 4:03 pm | by Conor Pope

  The Vintners Federation of Ireland and the Licensed Vintners have called on their members to respect a price freeze to keep pub prices at today’s levels for 12 months. I had to laugh when I read that the VFI and the LVI were suddenly concerned with their members providing value for money because the provision of good value has not seemed to be at the top of either group’s list for a very very long time.

  When I heard the news this morning it took me by surprise because I didn’t realise the lobby groups had anything at all to do with pricing. I know that when we have complained about rip-off prices in Irish pubs in the past both groups have always been very quick to wash their hands of it and say they have no control over the price of a pint .

  Having said all that, this voluntary “price freeze” is probably good news and it’s hard not to welcome it. Hard, but not impossible – the price of a pint in too many pubs in Ireland is just ridiculous and has been ridiculous for a long time so freezing the price at these levels is hardly good enough.

  A pint of Guinness in some well known pubs in Dublin costs €5.40 up to 11pm and then €6 after that. Six euro for a pint of stout is scandalous. Lagers cost even more and spirits and mixers are even more extravagantly priced. Some pubs think nothing of charging €3 for a pint of water and a dash of blackcurrant. This is a drink on which there is no tax and one which costs the publican around 10 cent, if it even costs them that much. Yet a charge of €1.50 and up to twice that amount for a non-alcoholic drink is not uncommon.

  What I, and I suspect many other people, would like to see is a significant price reduction across the board. That might be the only thing that will bring customers back. A combination of rip-off prices, the smoking bans, stricter drink driving laws and sometimes pretty woeful public transport is what is driving people away from the pubs and this move which a cynic might call a publicity stunt is probably not going to be enough to reverse the tide.

• Petrolling Prices

  July 7, 2008 @ 9:10 pm | by Conor Pope

  Rosemary wants a petrolwatch wesbite. She’s heard that somewhere in Dublin there is unleaded petrol to be had for 128 cent but hasn’t been able to find it. “In the name of competition and survival, we should be helping each other out! A nice wad of information about where’s cheapest would help and, perhaps (I’m being optimistic) help drive down prices elsewhere. And if not on Pricewatch, where?!” I’ve just found somewhere else that is doing just that and also found out where petrol is selling for 128 cent a litre. It’s in Donaghmede, apparently.

  I like the idea of people helping each other out and pointing the way to bargains. But let’s not confine it to petrol – wouldn’t it be great to have a constantly updated, entirely independent website where you could go to find out where the cheapest and dearest everything was? Yes, yes it would.

• Chicken confusion

  November 28, 2007 @ 12:21 am | by Conor Pope

  A reader from Dublin 3 recently bought an organic chicken in Marks & Spencer; while it was absolutely fine, paying for it left a bitter taste in her mouth because of what she calls its “blatantly misleading” price tag. The chicken in question had a large red label on the packaging proudly announcing that there was 25 per cent off per kg; underneath the outsized red sticker, in finer print, shoppers were advised to “see price ticket for details” The price ticket had the usual use by date, weight and price which was €9.36.

  “At the till I was charged the €9.36,” writes our reader. “I queried this with a staff member, who said that the reduction was already included in the price.” She reasoned that “then there wasn’t 25 per cent off the price as stated; he agreed that it was misleading but that was the way it came in to them and there was nothing he could or would do for me. I went ahead with the purchase, as how else do you really complain about these things?

  “Surely this is blatantly misleading: there is no 25 per cent off the stated item. A number of people came up to me on the way out and said they had similar incidents with M&S and got nowhere either,” she says.

  We contacted the store ourselves to find out more and received the following statement: “The product was reduced from €9.99 per kilo to €7.49, ie less 25 per cent. The product had a shelf ticket stating that reduction with a slash ticket. Whole chickens are a catch weight line, therefore the customer pays for the weight of the chicken multiplied by the price per kilo.

  “M&S don’t show a slash price on each individual product as they are all different weights but they do on the shelf ticket. The price on the chicken is the total price the customer pays, which is calculated on the actual chicken weight multiplied by the discounted price per kilo.” Hmmm.

  The response was almost as confusing to Pricewatch as the in-store labelling was to our reader and did not address at all the central complaint she was making, which was that having a large red 25 per cent off sticker emblazoned on the packaging has the potential to, at the very least, create the impression amongst shoppers not inclined to study the fine print on the shelf ticket that there is 25 per cent off the marked price of the item.

  We contacted the store seeking further clarification but no one was available to elaborate on the original response.