Keep an eye on the exchange rates!

dubdcugirly

Hey guys...having just finished a job in retail to go an to bigger and better things I wanted to let you know things that really peeved me...

We are paying on average 15%-20% more due to pound to euro change in clothes stores...Recently a certain store has decided to try to
remove English pricing so ppl will not notice and workers were told to direct all queries to the manager (although I don't know what they were told to say)..

For example in an article in that main Irish mag, cant remember the name of it they said that one shop was charging 195 for a leather jacket but when you exchanged over the english price on the tag it should be 163euro!!!

Watch out and say it if u notice it, hopefully then we wont be ripped off!

fatal

Do many of these stores accept payment in pounds instead of euro's?Last year my mum went to M&S and paid for some items in pounds.
Imagine having to resort to buying pounds to go shopping in town:rolleyes:

I went shopping on the border last weekend. I only had cash one me, and they used the same exchange rate they did 6 months ago.
Complete robbery.

dubdcugirly

fatal wrote: »

Do many of these stores accept payment in pounds instead of euro's?Last year my mum went to M&S and paid for some items in pounds.
Imagine having to resort to buying pounds to go shopping in town:rolleyes:

Was that in the one in town? Maybe some do marks and sparks is a bit of an exception in some of their till practices...I know that a few other departments stores don't cause my sis lives in London and so when she comes home she usually asks.

Yeh ive had the excuse of "when we got that top in with the tag that was correct with ref to the exchange rate at that time" load of bull because they could just alter the system in accordance with the rates every week or so, they do it daily when things go into sale so they could just do the same with the full price stuff!!

BETTYCO

When in Newry a few weeks ago I asked in one well known UK fashion chain what was their exchange rate for euro - I was told 0.79. I had 1 item at £17 so I said I would pay in euro. A quick tot on my mobile phone calculator told me it should be €21.50ish. Got a surprise when she asked for €25!! When I questioned the rate I was made to feel a bit thick....so I asked the shop assistant to use her calculator to check...she eventually agreed I was right but said the til must have updated overnight to 0.68! More like its been that rate for months but they have been telling everyone it was 0.79!

fatal

dubdcugirly wrote: »

Was that in the one in town? Maybe some do marks and sparks is a bit of an exception in some of their till practices...I know that a few other departments stores don't cause my sis lives in London and so when she comes home she usually asks.

Yeh ive had the excuse of "when we got that top in with the tag that was correct with ref to the exchange rate at that time" load of bull because they could just alter the system in accordance with the rates every week or so, they do it daily when things go into sale so they could just do the same with the full price stuff!!

Yea its the one in the jervis.You have to the customer services desk on whatever floor the mens clothes are on to do it.Mum did it last year so I can only guess that it can still be done today

unreggd

I always thought it was because they were UK chain stores, so it'd cost more to buy here with import tax, transport and all that jazz

aoife000

something that i noticed as well that is really bad form is that in dunnes stores there is absolutely no consistency between the prices when they are changed over from sterling. for example, i was looking at some tops in dunnes stores..

both are marked £15 --- with the current rate it should be about €19.50

the euro price on one is €22 and the euro price on the other is €25. naturally i went for the €22 one even though i preferred the other one. i mean wdf, it the two tops are the same price in the uk, why should one be dearer than the other in the ROI.

even look at their socks, you could pick up three pairs of socks that cost £2 in the UK, one could be €3 here, one would be €3.50 and one is €4 even though they all cost £2 in the UK / Northern Ireland.

Sounds mad but it is absolutely true!

aoife000

unreggd wrote: »

I always thought it was because they were UK chain stores, so it'd cost more to buy here with import tax, transport and all that jazz

personally i don't see how they can use that line, since they can afford to transport the stock from the UK to Northern Ireland and sell at the UK price, but in all the towns just even say a couple of miles south of the border, they are changing the price over to euro, and then adding on a high percentage

dubdcugirly

aoife000 wrote: »

personally i don't see how they can use that line, since they can afford to transport the stock from the UK to Northern Ireland and sell at the UK price, but in all the towns just even say a couple of miles south of the border, they are changing the price over to euro, and then adding on a high percentage

Exactly they cant use that line, I thought that was the excuse the managers where going to use in the shop but she said no it isnt coz its their choice to supply here they have to shoulder the cost, there is such a high mark-up on clothes already they can definitely shoulder the cost. either way they dont use it as an excuse...

As for the dunnes one that is sooo weird...the only thing is in some countries for example linen would have a higher VAT than cotton so that might having something to do with but still sounds extremly fishy to me!

Corruptedmorals

Dunnes prices have gone down (clothes). I've heard River Island's have too. I want all of Arcadia's to drop. Nah the exchange rate is not what it should be, but that's because costs etc. have to be added on (though this is clearly milked by some stores) but yeah, prices should come down in all shops!

aoife000

dubdcugirly wrote: »

As for the dunnes one that is sooo weird...

i actually think this would be much better suited in the consumer section (maybe i should post it there also?) but i have looked up the dunnes stores website and can actually give links to some examples of what i am talking about.

firstly here's two items of clothing which on the dunnes stores website are £25. (at current exchange rate is approx €32.75).

in dunnes it seems that for most of the items which cost £25 the standard equivilant euro price is €35, here being one example:
http://http://www.dunnesstores.ie/fashion.php?id=women&secId=129

HOWEVER here is an example of an item which costs £25 but costs €40 in the ROI: http://http://www.dunnesstores.ie/fashion.php?id=women&secId=129

if both cost the same price (£25) in Northern Ireland / UK why should they cost two different euro prices. so for the second item we end up paying €5 more in the ROI


Ok another one, their standard euro equivilant of £20 seems to be €30, there being many examples on their website, but this being one:
http://http://www.dunnesstores.ie/fashion.php?id=women&secId=129

HOWEVER here is an example of an item which costs £20 but €35:
http://http://www.dunnesstores.ie/fashion.php?id=women&secId=129 meaning we pay the same price for both items in the North, but if we shop in the south we pay €5 more for the second item.

plenty more examples, you'd probably find hundreds of them when you are in teh store.

and even at that, they don't have a consistent exchange rate at all.

i mean where their standard euro equivilant of the £25 is €35 this is an exchange of 1.4, whereas the standard euro equivilant of £20 seems to be €30, which is an exchange of 1.5 (the rates for the €40 and €35 prices being even higher.)

would love to hear an answer from dunnes stores on this, might write in on it, woould probably get ignored tho.

just doesn't make sense.

grrr, this is so annoying, i thought i had copied and pasted the links wrong, but i've looked and for the four different clothing items it seems to have the same url. will try to post better examples if i can

ams

claires accessories is one of the worst offenders for this - their prices are ridiculous and most of their stuff is aimed at kids which makes it worse.

New look for the past while has been doing extensive promotion to give 20% off vouchers when people purchase items and also throughout April they had unlimted vouchers for friends and family so not all retailers are money grabbing but I agree the price conversions have to go down

dubdcugirly

Deleted User wrote: »

New look for the past while has been doing extensive promotion to give 20% off vouchers when people purchase items and also throughout April they had unlimted vouchers for friends and family so not all retailers are money grabbing but I agree the price conversions have to go down

Oasis do the same but they are also extremely bad at the exchange rate thing! And if they are doing it here they are also giving 20% of in England so that is an even bigger difference!

NicsM

dubdcugirly wrote: »

Hey guys...having just finished a job in retail to go an to bigger and better things I wanted to let you know things that really peeved me...

We are paying on average 15%-20% more due to pound to euro change in clothes stores...Recently a certain store has decided to try to
remove English pricing so ppl will not notice and workers were told to direct all queries to the manager (although I don't know what they were told to say)..

For example in an article in that main Irish mag, cant remember the name of it they said that one shop was charging 195 for a leather jacket but when you exchanged over the english price on the tag it should be 163euro!!!

Watch out and say it if u notice it, hopefully then we wont be ripped off!

Dubdcugirly, I'm pretty sure we're working for the same store, having to painstakingly remove sterling stickers is a pain! A lot of people have begun to be more aware of the exchange rate, I've had a few irate customers giving out to me about the mark-up. Tbh, it seems like Irish branches of high-street chains are propping them up as the high street in the UK is in the middle of a massive downturn.

Ogham

I suppose you could pay the actual sterling prices by buying online fron UK based shops. Not many of the well known clothes shops deliver to Ireland though - Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge do. M&S don't (yet) .

Sugar Drunk

ams wrote: »

claires accessories is one of the worst offenders for this - their prices are ridiculous and most of their stuff is aimed at kids which makes it worse.

yes i was there the other day and thought the same the prices were a joke! I wont be going back anytime soon:mad:

xOxSinéadxOx

Sugar Drunk wrote: »

yes i was there the other day and thought the same the prices were a joke! I wont be going back anytime soon:mad:

claire's are penneys quality at a ridiculous price.