Last week's Budget will surely finish off the 'pay and display' style of shopping made popular during the boom years. And with retailers now trying to please a leaner, meaner type of consumer, there is one Irish brand which is coming into its own, writes ITA O'KELLY

EIGHTEEN MONTHS ago a friend chided me for hunting for the trolley return area after doing my grocery shopping. “Reclaiming your euro from a supermarket trolley amounts to social death,” she announced with exasperation as I extracted the euro from my trolley and popped it into my purse with glee.

I am sure she wouldn’t tick me off for chasing my euro today, as a new reality dawns and the average Irish consumer is no longer too grand to be seen to be looking after their money.

To the consternation of retailers, we have become much more careful with our cash in these recessionary times. Staff in any medium- to high-end boutique these days get positively excited when you even venture into the shop.

While so many of the high-end shops are reporting a huge reduction in business, there is one remarkable exception within the recession-ravaged rag trade. It is called Penneys.

The company, which trades as Primark in the UK, has just posted a 5 per cent increase in profits. It has 187 stores (37 in Ireland) and is owned by Associated British Foods (ABF), which plans to open a further seven stores this year, including firsts in Germany and Portugal.

The store (whose motto is “Look Good, Pay Less”) was set up in 1969 by Irishman Arthur Ryan, who is still the main dynamo behind the hugely successful chain. It doesn’t advertise, it never has a sale and its functional carrier bags are designed simply to carry goods. A walk around any retail centre today reveals a sea of Penneys bags and precious little else.

Unlike many other retailers, Penneys has never gone “off message”. It started off selling fashion at rock-bottom prices and it has never diversified. Nor has it ever been tempted to make the product more upmarket.

The key to its continued success is its buying policy, with a team of buyers in Asia who import directly for the company, cutting out the middleman.

UCD STUDENT Laura Kinahan (28) is, by her own admission, a dedicated follower of fashion. Like many students she doesnt have a big budget at her disposal, so more often than not her destination, to get the look that she wants at the prices she can afford, is Penneys.

“I always buy Look and OK! magazines, and I tend to look at what the celebrities are wearing before I go shopping,” she says. “I buy lots of things in Penneys because it is so cheap, but I dont buy everything there. They are brilliant for T-shirts, dresses for going out and, of course, for holidays. I am going to Spain in June and I recently bought two bikinis at €5 a piece and a hat at €2. I buy if I get the look I want at the price I want.

“Penneys do brilliant pumps in all styles, and they cost just €10. They don’t look any different from the more expensive ones in other shops. They also do great accessories and jewellery that costs so little.”

Kinahan says people were less keen a few years ago to admit that they shopped in Penneys and would try to hide the bags, but not any more. Today it is a badge of honour to boast about how little your pay for something.

“I get a great kick out it when people admire something and I tell them what I paid for it,” she says. “I bought a great blue dress with a corsage at the hip in Penneys that I wore out on New Year’s Eve. I got loads of compliments and most people were shocked when I told them that it cost just €15.”

As well as Penneys, Kinahan also shops online at asos.com (As Seen on Screen), where she reckons there is good value even if you include the cost of post and packaging. She cites a tulip-shaped skirt that she saw priced €50 in Dublin’s Dundrum Town Centre but which she managed to buy online at a total cost of €35.

“I think that Penneys is probably at its best for the summer season,” she says. “You can go there and buy just about a whole holiday wardrobe for next to nothing. Nobody wants to spend big money on shorts or swimsuits, and with Penneys you don’t have to.”

BUDGET CLOTHING IS not the only retail area to have benefited from changing consumer-spending habits. Stores such as Lidl and Aldi are attracting greater numbers of shoppers, while the overall pattern of food shopping has also changed. Consumers are no longer snooty about where they buy.

Long-life Lidl bags are now in evidence across all economic groups as saving money becomes socially acceptable.

Ann Fitzgerald, chief executive of the National Consumer Agency (NCA), says that people lost their awareness of value during the boom times, but that it has returned with a vengeance since the onset of the recession.

“We at the NCA first noticed a distinct change in consumer habits around March 2008 when it became clear that people were no longer prepared to do all their grocery shopping, for instance, in the one store,” she says. “Typically, people are now spreading their weekly shop among three to four different shops in search of value for their money.”

Fitzgerald says that an increasingly discerning customer is now driving competition among retailers and service providers, and that this is benefiting consumers, who have become more and more price-aware.

The most recent survey by the NCA reveals that eight out of 10 people here are now worried about their financial future and that 61 per cent have already cut back their spending due to the recession.

To meet these concerns, the NCA has just launched a new consumer value section on its website, consumerconnect.ie. It is designed as a one-stop shop for the cost-conscious consumer across all areas, including transport, travel, housing, insurance, fuel, recreation and telecommunications.

“Consumer value is not about changing the way you live your life,” Fitzgerald says. “It is about making informed consumer choices based on full information and an understanding of what cost-versus-benefit mix is right for you.”

The friend who once shared her nugget of wisdom about the social death that would follow retrieving my trolley euro has recently given me some other shopping advice, singing the praises of the Parmesan in Aldi and the prosciutto in Lidl.

Customers are a fickle lot, as retailers know to their cost. While the Devil may have indeed worn Prada a couple of years ago, today, if she is Irish, she is more likely to be attired in Penneys, fed by a German discounter and proud of it.