Shopping in the North - Unpatriotic or what?

vibe666

if you want to go up the north shopping, head for enniskillen not newry.

the journey is a little further from dublin, but i was speaking to someone who went to newry last weekend and they were jammed up for 2 hours on their way in.

head to enniskillen early (i.e. leave at 6am or before) to the 24 hour asda on a saturday and you will be in and out before it gets too busy, unlike newry.

ericthebhoy

They should all get a grip and realise we are being charged far too much money for our goods down here.

The harder we hit the government in the pocket with our shopping around for bargains, the sooner we might see proper competitive prices in the 26!

Our man in Havana

hellboy99 wrote: »

Anyone here the ads playing on LMFM about us being unpatriotic :eek:, I'm not even going to repeat what they say for fear of been held liable, listen for yourselves.

I can't listen.

Can you give me the jist?

cutesy

Example of how we are being ripped off: Shopping on Oxford street in London which is more expensive that other places in the U.K. due to high rent I got two dresses both £19.98 each in H&M, they had a euro price of €30.00 and the other €36.00. I paid for them on my credit card and asked for the payment to be left in sterling on my card. When I came home I called the bank and asked what the price for that certain transaction was in euros (that I would have to pay when my bill came) it came to €47.19....it would have been €63.00 if I had asked them to process it in Euro in London...save!!! Weird aint it!

hellboy99

Bond-007 wrote: »

I can't listen.

Can you give me the jist?

Put it this way, it's something you would of expected to hear durning the troubles.

97i9y3941

goverment made a balls of it,its been often stated that,reason that some of the uk stores wont come here because of the planning laws,unpatriotic? are you mad!!,what about during the boom,when people were going to the USA for their shopping,there was no whingeing or moaning there,i cant blame some people for crossing over to the borders,when you are on a budget you might aswell cross over to the border,besides,didnt the gov always preach for us to "shop around"

slinky2000

hellboy99 wrote: »

Put it this way, it's something you would of expected to hear durning the troubles.

just put it up. not everyone lives in dublin u know!

97i9y3941

they might aswell call the companies that are leaving here in droves and going to eastern europe for cheaper labour unpatriotic aswell

wilson10

If Dunnes Stores ever sets up a Bureau de Change keep well clear of it.

I picked up a pair of shoes in Dunnes Store in The Square today to see the price.

The label was in dual pricing pound and euro. £25, €45.

If this is not a ripoff I don't know what is.

The current exchange rate for 25 sterling would be less than €30

DonJose

The government is full of sh!te, didn't they just award the M50 toll scheme to Eflow a company who has their call centers in Northern Ireland, over 100 people who worked on the tolls lost their jobs because of this. Those people could have easily been retrained and retained by the company if they based locally.

97i9y3941

Irish independent-Tuesday December 09 2008

HUGE changes in consumer habits over the last six months saw sales of own-label goods hitting an all time high, writes Roisin Burke.

While sales at Aldi and Lidl soar, convenience store sales were hit hard, a new report by leading researcher Nielsen showed.

The report, 'Consumers in Recession' showed that 59pc of shoppers would switch to cheaper brands to save money ahead of cutting back on discretionary spending such as take-aways or clothes shopping.

Sales at Aldi and Lidl have jumped 40pc since January, according to the report, while some 61pc of people who shop at Lidl now consider themselves regular Lidl shoppers, compared with 30pc last year.

i wonder are some of the shoppers the john and marys of last year who had their 2 houses and their suv

mathie

shaca wrote: »

Where is the best place for toys in the North?

There's a toy store opposite the Quays in Newry (in the Quays car park).
They're currently offering euro for pound.

We did some shopping there last night.
The stuff we got cost less than 100 euro.
We'd priced it down south at nearly 250.

M

The_Conductor

Newry is manic, good luck trying to get parking- you're better off continuing up the A1 to Lisburn. They have Argos, Toys-r-us and loads of other stuff there....... Not aware of anywhere offering £1/EUR1 though (but the Euro is already over 88p- so take your pick.

97i9y3941

heard theres fist fights and all breaking out over parking

Our man in Havana

Fred83 wrote: »

heard theres fist fights and all breaking out over parking

It wouldn't surprise me.

hellboy99

Fred83 wrote: »

heard theres fist fights and all breaking out over parking

There was at the weekend, mate of mine seen it, said they were killing each other over a parking space.

The_Conductor

hellboy99 wrote: »

There was at the weekend, mate of mine seen it, said they were killing each other over a parking space.

I know 3 seperate people who claim to have seen it too- but I'm guessing this must be relegated to 'urban legend' status.

That said- parking is in severe constraint in Newry. Why put yourself to all the stress and trouble when Banbridge and Lisburn are just a little further up the road?

97i9y3941

people must think the north is going to disappear after xmas

projectmayhem

I think an odd knock-on effect of people shopping up north is that, where I work, we're a large company based in the UK, so prices are lower up north... but amazingly people think that they can go to their local store with a British receipt and tell me to fix his broken item.

I can see the post-Christmas descent of complaints onto stores getting interesting with larger chains having to turn people away with their foreign receipts. I had a man nearly kill me over "his rights" but backed right down when I simply changed his argument from a UK receipt to a French one... just because it's an hour away doesn't make it the same country!

Just a warning.. caviat emptor, etc.

97i9y3941

i remember hearing that on the local radio alright,the retailers were saying you woundnt have much of a come back,so you would had to go all the way back up to the north if you wanted a refund/exchange

bill_ashmount

Fred83 wrote: »

heard theres fist fights and all breaking out over parking

Here http://www.independent.ie/national-news/northern-shopping-trips-hit-by-trolley-fights-and-parking-rage-1570556.html

hellboy99

bill_ashmount wrote: »

Here http://www.independent.ie/national-news/northern-shopping-trips-hit-by-trolley-fights-and-parking-rage-1570556.html

Just after reading it there now

Here's a part from the article:

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said that while he had not called on people to do their patriotic duty by shopping at home, he had said that if they shopped locally, they would be assisting the exchequer.
He said that he had commissioned a study by the Central Statistics Office to discover just how much revenue was being lost due to cross-border shopping.

The government wasting more money on another useless study I see :mad:, how hard is it for our government to realise that we are being robbed blind here in the south, all that needs to be done is to lower prices, simple as that :rolleyes:

Jaysoose

hellboy99 wrote: »

Just after reading it there now

Here's a part from the article:


The government wasting more money on another useless study I see :mad:, how hard is it for our government to realise that we are being robbed blind here in the south, all that needs to be done is to lower prices, simple as that :rolleyes:

Maybe the study will show them that by banging up business rates and creating all these different bodies like Repak etc that do nothing except add charges to the businesses costs is helping to cause the price hikes.

Ridiculous situation in this country right now, the goverment are so short sighted and are taxing the shops and the people to the brink of collapse.

Not justifying the ripoff culture by the shops just pointing out that they are getting shafted by the goverment aswell and are passing it on to us in turn so basically its THE GOVERMENT causing the tailbacks on the M1 into newry. They really do want it everyway and expect us to sit here and be shafted by everybody.

97i9y3941

surprised they havent set up a customs check,like they did with the usa shoppers at the time!,and what about the ministers that leave the country on patricks day to go to other parts of world,is that unpatriotic?

Our man in Havana

They cannot setup customs checkpoints on the border.

The_Conductor

Bond-007 wrote: »

They cannot setup customs checkpoints on the border.

Call it a security checkpoint, with incidental checks on alcohol and other commodities that people 'might' happen to have in their vehicles with them. There is a limit on the amount of alcohol you can buy in another state without incurring duty when importing it into another member state (VAT is irrelevant- as its already been paid). FYI I think its 60 litres of wine, 200 litres of beer or 20 litres of spirits...... Enough to give any sane family severe alcohol poisoning.......

Might be worth their while setting up a checkpoint- given some of the van loads I've seen!!!

Our man in Havana

Most sane people would not fall foul of those limits.

Basq

Bond-007 wrote: »

Most sane people would not fall foul of those limits.

Sane people with small cars / arms? You're right there. :pac:

RiverWilde

What is up with people? Arguing over trolleys and car park spaces?
"It's my trolley"

"No, it's mine! I saw it first. If you don't step away from the trolley I'll be forced to use my handbag!"

etc etc.

Bloody tragic.

Riv

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/northern-shopping-trips-hit-by-trolley-fights-and-parking-rage-1570556.html

Jaysoose

RiverWilde wrote: »

What is up with people? Arguing over trolleys and car park spaces?
"It's my trolley"

"No, it's mine! I saw it first. If you don't step away from the trolley I'll be forced to use my handbag!"

etc etc.

Bloody tragic.

Riv

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/northern-shopping-trips-hit-by-trolley-fights-and-parking-rage-1570556.html

Jaysus thats shocking that anybody would fight over a trolley, to be fair the indo sinks further closer to the red tops style of journalism covering this rubbish, Notice it was two isolated incidents and the headline reads Trolley fights! as if its all out war at the trolley bays or something it was one fight over a trolley!! they need to get over it, this sort of thing happens in all shopping centre carparks!!! Have personally seen a lad get a slap for "stealing" somebody elses space when they were waiting for a guy to pull out and the villain floored it and pulled in ahead of him.