Shopowner seeks more information on new currency

Eoin Cooke is managing director of the Marble Arch Trading Company, which operates a small shop on South Anne Street, in Dublin's city centre.

The shop sells marble and brass products, telescopes and picture frames and has a significant number of overseas customers. Mr Cooke said that small shopowners do not have enough information about the euro and it is not a subject most of them discuss.

He said he has been surprised at the lack of knowledge among some bank staff he has dealt with. "I made a recent enquiry about euro credit cards with a bank and they did not seem to know anything about them," he said.

Mr Cooke said he would introduce dual pricing when he saw the competition doing the same. However, he said he would place a conversion table in the shop from the new year.

"One of the advantages in the future will come when sourcing products for the shop abroad, having a recognised currency with a fixed value will take a lot of uncertainty out of the equation," he said.

His most acute worry concerns the period when the two currencies exist alongside each other, for a period of up to six months in early 2002.

"I think it will be bloody chaos, many shops will need two tills and have to keep everything separate," he said.

Unlike other people, aged 24 Mr Cooke does not remember decimalisation and wonders will the problems which occurred then be repeated next year.

He rejects the idea that retailers will "round up" the prices of their goods. "With the conversion rates everything will be fixed and I expect European shoppers to carry conversion tables in their wallets, so everything will be straightforward," he said.