Laura Ashley Dual pricing.

Mailman

Laura Ashley label their product in their stores with price in Sterling and Euro.

Price for a 2.4metre runner(hallway mat) was €175 or £100Stg.

I figure that £100Stg is about €142 at current exchange rates.

I've seen price disparities before in some of the UK chain stores operating here in Ireland but never as large as that.

Sunday Business Post has an article on how the ripoff will continue in 2004

http://www.thepost.ie/web/DocumentView/did-370111041-pageUrl--2FMisc-2FEzine.asp

BluE-WinG

Whenever I see dual pricing - I pay in £ Because I KNOW Im saving in the long run --
Simple way to avoid being ripped off just ask them to charge ur credit card in Pounds instead of euros. The most notorious people for doing this are the Ferries.

Genghis

Will a high street store be able to charge your credit card in pounds? With the exchange rate as it is the £ price is invariably much better value than the € one. A 1.75 €/£ is outrageous.

Sarsfield

Good article from the SBP, but do any other papers (especially the tabloids) cover ripoff ireland to any extent. I don't buy newspapers (too expensive ).

Mass readership is required to make any difference, and while the Post is a good read, it's hardly the biggest Sunday on the Irish market.

eth0_

Originally posted by Genghis
Will a high street store be able to charge your credit card in pounds? With the exchange rate as it is the £ price is invariably much better value than the € one. A 1.75 €/£ is outrageous.

Yes, they can, any credit card terminal can charge in sterling.

dudara

that's a really useful thing to know. A lot of the british clothing chains exhibit dual pricing on the labels, and you often have to query the conversion.

Have you actually done this in shops in Ireland, and not just on the ferry?

Genghis

That is really useful to know alright. I would hazard a guess though that store assistants are unaware a) that this can be done and b) how this can be done.

dahamsta

From the Post article:

And as Irish consumers approach this year's spring cleaning, there is still no catalyst for real competition in the homeware sector. Ikea has indicated its interest in opening in the Republic, but vested interests have barred its arrival.

Eh? How?

adam

dudara

There is a limit, introduced in planning guidelines January 2001 of 6,000 m^2 on the floor space any retailer can have in Ireland. This is smaller than the store Ikea would like to open. Their typical scale of operation is about 28,000 sq m.

Genghis

Originally posted by dudara
There is a limit, introduced in planning guidelines January 2001 of 6,000 m^2 on the floor space any retailer can have in Ireland. This is smaller than the store Ikea would like to open. Their typical scale of operation is about 28,000 sq m.

dahamsta might be asking how that particular legislative instrument constitutes a 'vested interest'.

parsi

Originally posted by Genghis
dahamsta might be asking how that particular legislative instrument constitutes a 'vested interest'.

But.. whats to stop them opening just North of the border - I don't imagine there is a limit up there.. that way they could easily serve our market as well...

dahamsta

Nah, dudara answered my question just fine, thanks. The North would be a mite too far for me btw. I travel to Dublin every now and then so I might pop in while I was up there, but I wouldn't travel specifically for it.

adam