Price Watch: You spot the prices, we ask the questions
A Dublin-based reader writes "to redress the balance about reports of excessive mark-ups on items imported from Britain". He recently bought a pair of men's deck shoes in Marks & Spencer in the Dundrum Town Centre for €45. "Visiting Epsom last week, I noticed in the M&S store there that the same shoes are priced £40, which at present rates comes close to €60. In both cases the prices were 'regular' - not on special discount or such. So we're doing well on this side of the pond," he says.
Not according to another reader who found the price difference between a department store's outlets on either side of the Border going very much against her. In Belfast recently Muireann Ní Mhóraín saw a jacket in Debenhams which took her fancy. It cost £100 sterling, or approximately €144. She would have bought it but her size was not in stock. "The following morning I went to Debenhams in Dublin and was appalled to discover that the same jacket cost €180. When I queried the price difference I was told it had to do with carriage costs. I pointed out that Belfast was on the same island and only 100 miles up the road but to no avail." PriceWatch has been in touch with Debenhams about the discrepancies between its sterling and euro prices in the past. The company accepted that its euro prices were higher than its sterling ones but pointed out that labour costs and property prices were 30 per cent to 50 per cent higher in Dublin than across the UK and said the VAT rate on clothes, which is 4 per cent higher in the Republic, was also a factor.
Coffee alert: Another reader has been in touch to alert readers about the importance of shopping around for even the most basic of items such as instant coffee. Ena Keye bought a 100 gram jar Nescafé Blend 37 at her local Spar shop on Orwell Road, Rathgar for €5.37. She says she subsequently found the same size jar of the coffee for sale in a supermarket in Churchtown for less than €3. While PriceWatch was unable to find the coffee selling for under €3, a quick survey found the same coffee selling in a city centre Centra for €4.19. Superquinn sells it for €3.82, while Tesco is selling it for €3.80.
