November 23rd, 1983: Cross-Border shopping expeditions have a long history

The ebb and flow of cross-Border shopping (the legal kind, not to mention the smuggling) has usually been dictated by government…

The ebb and flow of cross-Border shopping (the legal kind, not to mention the smuggling) has usually been dictated by government decisions and taxes and, as at present, by currency fluctuations. It wasn't the latter that sent hordes of Southerners to Newry for their Christmas shopping in 1983 but increases in VAT and excise duties, as well as the generally higher costs of products in the South, as this report by Brian Donaghy explained, writes JOE JOYCE.

SATURDAY WAS “just unbelievable, it just broke all sales records . . . the past three or four weeks have been fairly good, but Saturday was fantastic.”

If the traders are to be believed, Christmas is coming and Newry’s getting fat.

There were 109 coachloads of Southern shoppers in the Northern Border town last Saturday, about 30 of them from Dublin or further south. Normally a Saturday will bring between 40 and 60 coaches from the Republic – business has been so good that between 15 and 20 new shops have opened in Newry in the last four months.

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This expansion seems likely to continue. Although an out-of-town shopping centre, bitterly opposed by the town-centre traders, has been refused planning permission following a public inquiry, it is understood that the three-acre Armagh and Down creamery site in the town centre has been bought by the Stewarts supermarket chain, and will be developed for shopping in the new year.

In Stewarts existing supermarket in the town the big seller in the wine bar is a can of Harp at 33 sterling pennies each – about IR 43p . But spirits have also been selling well, particularly vodka which is available at just under £7 sterling (IR£9) a bottle.

Electrical goods, biscuits, records and tapes, even baby clothes are all in demand from specialist shops and big stores alike. Essential toiletries – VAT-free in the North, taxed as luxuries in the South – are bought in bulk. As for washing powder, “the bigger the packet, the quicker they will buy them”. One store began stocking extra large tubs because shoppers from the 26 counties were buying the normal size packets by the case, and the large tubs now sell “as though they were going out of fashion”.

The boom at the weekend delighted the local Chamber of Commerce, but came as no surprise – they have been working towards it since this time last year when they noticed a pre-Christmas increase in sales of drink and other seasonal items to cross-Border customers.

According to Noel McKeown, president of the chamber, they noted the trend and kept an eye on what the Government in Dublin was doing on VAT and excise duties. What they saw encouraged them to print shoppers’ leaflets with location maps and details of shops and their goods, and to distribute 25,000 of them in the Republic over the past six months.

They have gone to the bus operators and to certain targeted areas such as O’Connell Street, in Dublin, where they have been handed out to passers by.

Since the price differential is highest on the sort of things people buy at Christmas – toys, drink, toiletries, records, electrical goods – a pre-Christmas rush was an obvious possibility.

Last Saturday the chamber, in co-operation with the police, organised the re-opening of a car park on the edge of town - it took 72 buses that day, and provided that much extra space for private motorists in the main car park in the town. Even more extensive preparations are planned for this coming weekend.

There had been fears that the crowds in the town, particularly on Saturdays and Thursdays, market day, would keep away the traditional customers who come from within a 20-mile radius of the town, but this has not happened.

Instead the boom has been spread through the week as the local shoppers seek to avoid the weekend peak.

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