Shopping in northern ireland to get more attractive

RobitTV

Taoiseach defends 2 per cent VAT increase despite cross-border shopping fears

He added that the move would push Irish VAT 3 per cent higher than in the UK, making cross-border shopping more attractive.

Irish retailers warn that an increase in the sales tax will encourage shoppers to head to Northern Ireland for liquor, cigarettes and household goods.

The proposed 2 percent increase in the value added tax known as the VAT would raise the total to 23 percent, The Irish Independent reported. That would mean shoppers could save 3 percent by crossing the border, and even more.

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It's a bad move to be making, especially coming up to Xmas. Brian Lenihan admitted back in March 2009 that his decision to increase the VAT rate in October 2008 budget was a "serious mistake" which ended up costing the state over €700m in lost trade to the North. 3 years on and the economy is still in the same mess, if not worse, and this government want to increase VAT, no lessons learned at all.

keano_afc

With the high price of fuel I really dont think you're gonna be saving all that much. I spend a lot of time in the North and even with our upcoming VAT increase Sterling is still very strong against the Euro (the reverse of 2-3 years ago, when it was worth the trip) so you're gonna have to spend £££'s to make any sort of saving.

Derfil

keano_afc wrote: »

With the high price of fuel I really dont think you're gonna be saving all that much. I spend a lot of time in the North and even with our upcoming VAT increase Sterling is still very strong against the Euro (the reverse of 2-3 years ago, when it was worth the trip) so you're gonna have to spend £££'s to make any sort of saving.

Well said. It's nothing like what it was 2-3 years ago when sterling/euro was almost on parity. Think their VAT rate was around 16 % then. Been raised to 20% since then and possibly going up again.

So like Keano says unless your spending big bucks there's no real savings to be made.

RobitTV

I Have a feeling the UK in their 2012 budget when ever that is, might do a temporary VAT reduction for a short-period like 6-8 months. It would be the right thing to do.

They did that in their 2008/2009 budget either one, it actually would work out well.

Also a VAT reduction has become more likely after some good news -

Victory for the UK! Millions of pounds saved as EU budget contribution rises by just 2%... after Europe demanded 5%

The spending plans were set at an inflation-only rise of 2% to 129bn euros (£110bn) after 15 hours of talks.

So a VAT reduction has become more likely, if there is a vat reduction shoppers will go back to the north more often IMO.

((Also inflation fell abit in the uk lately, so it's looking more promising))

Ms Tootsie

keano_afc wrote: »

With the high price of fuel I really dont think you're gonna be saving all that much. I spend a lot of time in the North and even with our upcoming VAT increase Sterling is still very strong against the Euro (the reverse of 2-3 years ago, when it was worth the trip) so you're gonna have to spend £££'s to make any sort of saving.

To be honest I am from the north and so do a bulk shop when I am up at home visiting the folks. Two weeks ago I was in Sainsburys and the couple in front of me were from the south and they had two trolley loads of food so they obviously find it worthwhile.

In all honesty it is not worth the trip for a weekly top up shop but an hour's drive up the road once a month to do a bulk shop on meat (which can then be frozen) dried foods, tinned foods, cleaning products, and alcohol is well worth the trip and the petro money. A shop in Tesco in Clarehall recently cost me 177euro and I got the same shop plus about three more weeks worth of meat for dinners and a few bottles of wine and boxes of beer for 104pounds. And Sainsburys is considered the expensive place up north. If I drove an extra 20 minutes to Banbridge I would save myself even more.

There is talk of an Asda coming to Newry and if that happens no one will want to do their grocery shopping in Dublin.

Glenbhoy

kaza2710 wrote: »

To be honest I am from the north and so do a bulk shop when I am up at home visiting the folks. Two weeks ago I was in Sainsburys and the couple in front of me were from the south and they had two trolley loads of food so they obviously find it worthwhile.

In all honesty it is not worth the trip for a weekly top up shop but an hour's drive up the road once a month to do a bulk shop on meat (which can then be frozen) dried foods, tinned foods, cleaning products, and alcohol is well worth the trip and the petro money. A shop in Tesco in Clarehall recently cost me 177euro and I got the same shop plus about three more weeks worth of meat for dinners and a few bottles of wine and boxes of beer for 104pounds. And Sainsburys is considered the expensive place up north. If I drove an extra 20 minutes to Banbridge I would save myself even more.

There is talk of an Asda coming to Newry and if that happens no one will want to do their grocery shopping in Dublin.

I tend to do a big shop when up north, though normally in Asda, it is significantly cheaper for some items, particularly baby products - formula, cereals (half the price), wipes etc. I have found that cleaning products and other items like nappies from the likes of Lidl are of a comparable standard to any brand name items (and don't get me started on Aldi steaks) so I'd buy them in the south. That said, I find the northern supermarkets have a better range of products all round.

Other than that I do all my day to day shopping in the south and there are quite a few products which are probably cheaper down here. Dairy products, vegetables, bread etc are certainly not more expensive and generally can be cheaper.

For big ticket items like the TV's it'd be amazon or the like for me and as for cars, well, that'd have to be imported!

anotherlostie

It is significantly cheaper, but it takes away at least half a day of your weekend and say it costs €40 to get there, then at a 3% saving you would need to spend nearly €1400 to recoup those costs. But I fully accept that there are other reasons for things being cheaper in the North such as multi buys in ASDA, but I think the VAT increase is a bit of a red herring - it makes if more attractive, but not much more.

650Ginge

keano_afc wrote: »

With the high price of fuel I really dont think you're gonna be saving all that much. I spend a lot of time in the North and even with our upcoming VAT increase Sterling is still very strong against the Euro (the reverse of 2-3 years ago, when it was worth the trip) so you're gonna have to spend £££'s to make any sort of saving.

When was the euro better than 0.85???

Atlantic Dawn

650Ginge wrote: »

When was the euro better than 0.85???

From December 2008 until March 2010 it traded in the 90p's and at one stage nearly hit parity.

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