Disney Store STG/EUR Price Difference Rip Off

vicwatson

Was there yesterday, some items marked as STG 16.00 or EUR 26.00 :eek: and definitely elsewhere in the shop where they showed an STG/EUR price the rate of exchange was a scandal.

That's a rate of exchange of aprx 0.61 !!!

Current rate of exchange as at today 0.8767 !!

Now if that's not a rip of, well.......

maxer68

they will ahve to cop on to themselves if they want to have a good business.

Problem is, Debenhams, Wallis, Dune, Monsoon, Accessorize and others are still at it too.

djdrobins

I am in France at the moment for Erasmus and the prices here are soooo much dearer then home.

You need to re-mortgage just to eat in a fancy restaurant, and the stereo typical have a coffee outside a cafe in the sun will cost you the guts of 3:80 - thats just a coffee with a bit of milk (UHT Milk).

Disney has always been dear, but being an American company they can play the ignorance to the exchange rate I guess. (Perhaps there was a Euro to Doller to Stirling mix up - across the store.)

vicwatson

Disney has always been dear, but being an American company they can play the ignorance to the exchange rate I guess. (Perhaps there was a Euro to Doller to Stirling mix up - across the store.)

Even they have been dear it doesn't excuse a blatant rip off in Euro of their sterling prices.

They should know their market just because they are American it's irrelevent that they can be ignorant - we Irish aren't !!!

they will ahve to cop on to themselves if they want to have a good business.

Totally agree, it's one thing charging us 26 euro but don't show us that we can buy the exact same product in STG zone for 16 pounds !!

There was another thing also - a suitcase - STG 20.00 or EURO 30.00 !!!

20goto10

Try paying them in sterling for the sterling price. I know they won't take it but if we all did it they might cop on.

maxer68

20goto10 wrote: »

Try paying them in sterling for the sterling price. I know they won't take it but if we all did it they might cop on.

That's just stupid.
They won't take it, they can't take it and you end up looking like an eejit if you try it.
Sterling in not a legal currency in this country.

The only way to get stores to change their pricing policy is not to shop there.

syklops

vicwatson wrote: »

Totally agree, it's one thing charging us 26 euro but don't show us that we can buy the exact same product in STG zone for 16 pounds !!

It does come across as a bit lazy having sterling and euro prices on it. That said, we have a thread on this every other day, comparing sterling and euro prices. It has repeatedly been shown that there is a higher cost to do business in Ireland. That higher cost is passed down to the consumer.

For example, using an exchange rate from today of 87 pence to the euro:

Assuming the retail staff are on minimum wage, It costs The Disney Store 7.65 euro(or 6.65GBP) an hour to pay its staff compared to 5.93GBP in British stores. So it costs the disney store 72 pence per person per hour more than in the UK. The VAT in Ireland is higher than the UK. Council rates are more in Ireland than the UK. The list goes on. Until the cost of doing business here goes down, the extra cost will continue to be passed to the consumer.

maxer68

I can operate a business charging the same or less than UK retailers and make a profit! But I do know that generally retail costs are higher, but overall, for comparison goods it should be no more than 5-8%

Disney is paying post tiger retail rent, so this doesn't come into it. Staff costs should be about 10% - 12% of turnover, so this would account for about 2.5% higher price, vat is 1% higher, so we're at 3.5%, rates are probably about 120 - 150,000 in their location, about 50k more than UK, so another 1.5% or so and we're at 5%. Electricity is now lower than UK, so this is out as are gas prices for heating.

Add in incidental extra costs including extra shipping and you're no more than 7% / 8%.

Then if they're making profit, they pay less corporation tax - so in reality a £10 item should be no more than €12.95 if they had a fair european pricing policy.

syklops

Look I am not trying to defend the indefensible here by siding with the Disney store, however, a few points from your post:

Disney is paying post tiger retail rent, so this doesn't come into it.

That most certainly does come into it. Even post-celtic tiger rents are too high, and would be comparable if not more, than rents for a similar sized store in the UK. At the height of the tiger, property prices in Dublin were said to be on a par with Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Good news, rents have dropped but they are still more than many other European cities.

Disney is paying post tiger retail rent, so this doesn't come into it. Staff costs should be about 10% - 12% of turnover, so this would account for about 2.5% higher price, vat is 1% higher, so we're at 3.5%, rates are probably about 120 - 150,000 in their location, about 50k more than UK, so another 1.5% or so and we're at 5%. Electricity is now lower than UK, so this is out as are gas prices for heating.

Can you qualify how you think council rates of 150K equates to a 1.5% increase in the cost of their items? It seems to me, if they had 50,000 items in stock, going for about 20 euro per item, they would need to add a euro onto each item to make the difference in rates, which alone is a 5% increase.

maxer68

syklops wrote: »

Look I am not trying to defend the indefensible here by siding with the Disney store, however, a few points from your post:



That most certainly does come into it. Even post-celtic tiger rents are too high, and would be comparable if not more, than rents for a similar sized store in the UK. At the height of the tiger, property prices in Dublin were said to be on a par with Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Good news, rents have dropped but they are still more than many other European cities.



Can you qualify how you think council rates of 150K equates to a 1.5% increase in the cost of their items? It seems to me, if they had 50,000 items in stock, going for about 20 euro per item, they would need to add a euro onto each item to make the difference in rates, which alone is a 5% increase.

Disney are paying a rent of €950,000 for the unit whish is about 40% below the peak rentals on Grafton street. (the tiny Korky's shop across the road is paying €360,000)

Disney expect to do approx €4m - €6m turnover in this store, so €50,000 = about 0.8% - 1.2% of their turnover.

I'm both a Celtic Tiger & post celtic Tiger retailer (luckily) and I know that at current costs (staff cost less, rent cost less), I can easily match any UK / USA store price thoughout the product ranges I carry and if I as a relatively smal retailer can do it, so can every other retailer that has opened up in the past 12 months. Unfortunately those with the higher rents can't do this until rents are reduced.

syklops

Well I am not going to argue any further, only to say I disagree with your statement that if you can make a profit in these austere time any other business can too.

If that were the case then I wouldn't see so many 'for rent' signs when I visit my home town. These were shops selling news papers, and cartons of milk, that decided it was no longer worth it. The Disney store, is going to have to sell a hell of a lot of Teddy Bears at 26 euros each to make 4 million turnover. To be honest I dont see them doing it. I remember they had a store in the liffey valley centre years ago, but I dont know how much business they did. Any time I was in there I was the only one. I was in their store in Times Square and it was packed.

Say what you want but Grafton Street is not Times Square.

gigino

Sometimes I wonder would we just be better off doing what Gay Byrne once suggested ; "handing the country back to the Queen with a note of apology." That way we could buy teddies for £ 16, the shop would make money, the landlord would not be in NAMA, and everyone would be happy.;).

All the teddies are probably made in China anyway.

syklops

gigino wrote: »

Sometimes I wonder would we just be better off doing what Gay Byrne once suggested ; "handing the country back to the Queen with a note of apology." That way we could buy teddies for £ 16, the shop would make money, the landlord would not be in NAMA, and everyone would be happy.;).

All the teddies are probably made in China anyway.

Lets not go that route just yet.

We are still a very young nation, so it will take time for a balance to be struck. Irish men and women both home and abroad have done some amazing things. The irish basically built the sub way in New York. Half of london was rebuilt by the irish. We have invented and discovered numerous things over the centuries so there is obviously nothing inherent in Irish people that makes us somehow less than our British neighbours. It is just that they have been doing it for longer than we have.

maxer68

syklops wrote: »

Well I am not going to argue any further, only to say I disagree with your statement that if you can make a profit in these austere time any other business can too.

If that were the case then I wouldn't see so many 'for rent' signs when I visit my home town. These were shops selling news papers, and cartons of milk, that decided it was no longer worth it. The Disney store, is going to have to sell a hell of a lot of Teddy Bears at 26 euros each to make 4 million turnover. To be honest I dont see them doing it. I remember they had a store in the liffey valley centre years ago, but I dont know how much business they did. Any time I was in there I was the only one. I was in their store in Times Square and it was packed.

Say what you want but Grafton Street is not Times Square.

I'm saying that once costs are brought in line with today's retail envirnoment, retail can be profitable again if there's a demand for the product you are selling. (e.g. Rent of unit in a town like Carlow used to be €70,000, now they'll accept €30,000)- But there are still a lot of landlords who refuse to accept that we're back to 1999 rental levels. If I was paying the costs I used to pay in 2004 - 2006, I'd be looking at losses in the hundred's of thousands (rent 380,000 in one unit, 445,000 in another!!). Luckily I got out.

The warner Bros. store in Liffey Valley did about 12-15k a week for most weeks and then did over 1/2 million in December alone their rent was €145,000 and when it was increased they made the store smaller and then they closed. (I took 2 of their staff when they closed) Disney store have the same sales model - they'll do a regular turnover for 11 months and then make hay for 4 weeks.

But they'll ahve to revist their pricing if they want to be seen as offering "value" if this is the word that can be applied to heavily branded toys.

borderlinemeath

syklops wrote: »

Well I am not going to argue any further, only to say I disagree with your statement that if you can make a profit in these austere time any other business can too.

If that were the case then I wouldn't see so many 'for rent' signs when I visit my home town. These were shops selling news papers, and cartons of milk, that decided it was no longer worth it. The Disney store, is going to have to sell a hell of a lot of Teddy Bears at 26 euros each to make 4 million turnover. To be honest I dont see them doing it. I remember they had a store in the liffey valley centre years ago, but I dont know how much business they did. Any time I was in there I was the only one. I was in their store in Times Square and it was packed.

Say what you want but Grafton Street is not Times Square.

A lot of retail businesses that have opened in the past year or so are still open. Landlords are a lot more open to taking less money than no money and also on far more flexible terms than the previous "upward only rent reviews" that have been the cause of so many closures over the past few years.

Payroll for older existing businesses would have been a factor, A lot of staff that have worked in retail for a long time have T&Cs such as double time on Sundays/Bank Hols, set patterns that don't work in the current climate, and lots of other perks that came with long service. Go back 10/12yrs when I was an assistant manager, the supervisors used to earn more money than me with overtime and double time:eek:

Rates are the only thing that haven't changed much - and this is a huge problem, commercial rates are extortionate, particularly in Dublin City Centre. I doubt any retailer is going to be granted a rebate from DCC due to the state visits that basically closed down the city for the guts of a week.


Arcadia are pulling out of 7 units in Blanchardstown (DP, Burton, Topshop, Topman, Evans, Wallis, Miss Selfridge) because of the landlords demands. They know damn well they can get far more reasonable leases in one of the retail parks (where they already trade alongside Next, Lidl, Heatons). While the threat of job losses for over 100 staff is on the agenda, I believe that they will either renegotiate or just move their existing businesses across to the retail park.

And finally it wasn't the Disney Store in Liffey Valley, it was a Warner Bros Store - different cartoons!

keithclancy

How is this a Rip Off Ireland Thread when the Euro is used in the rest of the Eurozone ?

vicwatson

How is this a Rip Off Ireland Thread when the Euro is used in the rest of the Eurozone ?

Eh because we are talking about the Disney Store on Grafton Street, Dublin, IRELAND, not anywhere else in the eurozone:rolleyes:

keithclancy

vicwatson wrote: »

Eh because we are talking about the Disney Store on Grafton Street, Dublin, IRELAND, not anywhere else in the eurozone:rolleyes:

As far as I know, stores in Dublin don't take Sterling as legal tender

Similar to saying River Island are a rip becuase of the conversion on the tag, but yet the price is the same somewhere else on the continent (e.g. Amsterdam)

vicwatson

As far as I know, stores in Dublin don't take Sterling as legal tender

Where did I say they did ?

You are missing the point, it's a rip off because we are being charged a heck of a lot more than across the water for the exact same product (as in excessively more).

keithclancy

vicwatson wrote: »

Where did I say they did ?

You are missing the point, it's a rip off because we are being charged a heck of a lot more than across the water for the exact same product (as in excessively more).

Yes indeed, it is more expensive for Goods here in the Netherlands than in the UK

syklops

vicwatson wrote: »

Where did I say they did ?

You are missing the point, it's a rip off because we are being charged a heck of a lot more than across the water for the exact same product (as in excessively more).

I think Keith Clancy's point is that, in other European countries that are in the Euro, they are being 'ripped off' too. some much more so than Ireland.

In Ireland, the minimum wage is 8.35, which means an Irish person on MW must work for 3 and a half hours to be able to afford the item at 26 euros*.

In the UK, the minimum wage is 5.93(for over 21 year olds), and so someone on the MW must work for 3 and a bit hours to afford the item*.

In Slovakia, the minimum wage is 2 euro, and so a person must work for more than a day and a half to be able to afford the item at 26 euros*.

*ignoring taxes for the moment.

booboo88

maxer68 wrote: »

That's just stupid.
They won't take it, they can't take it and you end up looking like an eejit if you try it.
Sterling in not a legal currency in this country.

The only way to get stores to change their pricing policy is not to shop there.

Did you not read the the post? he/she said they know disney wont take it, its just to prove a point

jack presley

A simple solution for those who don't like the Euro/Sterling difference: Don't buy anything there. In fact, don't even go into the shop.

If enough people take that stand, they'll either have to lower their prices or go out of business. Until then, they'll happily go on charging what they like.