What is it about Ireland that makes UK retail fail here?

I was living in part time in England and Ireland before and after the Brexit vote so I'd be popping into Lidl/Aldi and Tesco both here and there. Some things were more expensive in England, like smoked salmon and good meat, but then alcohol would be a lot cheaper there because of the lower tax. I found Aldi/Lidl roughly around the same on regular items, meat is definitely cheaper and better quality in Ireland.

Yes, you can get cheaper meat in England, but the quality and origin would be dubious. I remember the Tesco label on a chicken sandwich would say "meat from Thailand or Brazil", or maybe it's not chicken!!

However even on the basics which were comparable in price my UK wage was a third less than what I was being paid in Ireland, so Ireland was definitely better value. I do miss not being able to get the Nigerian Guinness in Tesco in England, great stuff.

In the industrial cities of England Wetherspoons would have a daytime drinking culture which isn't really a thing in Ireland. Pension pints, then the lunch crew for pints, then the after work/pre footy crowd would keep those pubs ticking along all the week days, but I can see how that absense of a working class any time pint can undermine the Wetherspoon model in Ireland. Plus their heated up food was never good.

I think Iceland was being run as a separate franchise in Ireland before it shuttered due to over reliance on dubiously sourced meat.

Screwfix is actually expanding and for me they kinda fill some of the Argos vacuum, although the only thing I used to use argos for was phones on offer.

A lot of the British shops that retreated from Ireland are also in retreat at home, and that's where businesses with a massive economy of scale like Lidl, Aldi, Pennys/Primark, and other EU shops are still expanding there.

Tesco getting a bit of praise here.But no mention of their paddy tax on clothing currently 50% Example £10.00 for an item means 15.00 euro.

On Iceland, Dunnes have started putting Iceland branded sections in to their larger stores.

There's a definite market for their product here, but the parent company has pulled out twice as well as a franchise failing, so it doesn't translate to keeping full store open

Boots were recently taken over by a PE group - always bad news for consumers.

Boots was founded in England, it's HQ is English. It was English when it set up shop here and that is how it operates in Ireland (as a subsidiary of UK) even if it's parent group is now multinational.

And as evidenced by the Union Jacks… TK Maxx is American but is being run here as a subsidiary of the UK.

When we were moving back to Ireland from England my wife had a job lined up with a UK company who'd recently acquired a franchise in Ireland, but when it came to negotiations they actually expected her to work for UK wages on a UK contract in Ireland!

I think a lot of the expansion of UK brands into Ireland in the 1990s was just their UK operations expanding into the single market that came to be in 1992/3, and probably cheap introductory rates for anchor tenancies in the expanding suburbs.

No doubt Brexit has become a speedbump for expansion of new businesses, but also other EU brands arriving in Ireland to compete too.

Same could be said for Sears

A lot of the meals in Iceland were the same with the Union flag on the front of the packaging which can't have helped sales.

The excise on beer is higher in the UK than in Ireland.

Lower prices for beer in the UK are not due to differences in tax.

Never saw more than 3 or 4 people in the nearest Iceland on the rare occasion I was there.

M&S also closed their nearest store to me.

Boots is going nowhere - prescription dispensing in Ireland is a goldmine.