Should people shop up the north??

IrishWhiskeyCha

Forgot to say that I do feel sorry for the independent retailers and I try to support them as much as possible ...

I was talking to one guy and after inquiring about the price of a certian product he told me not to bother and buy it on line :eek:

He was not stocking the item any more anyway as it cost him more than it could be had for online

And that is what he was up against ...

amazing honest of him though.

TheDrog

I try to shop up north when ever possible, it's cheaper and stocks a number of products that I cant get down here. Also Appleton VX rum 37 euros or 17 pounds

IrishWhiskeyCha

Coincidently I am just back from a trip up the north.

We popped into Tescos and got some shopping. I then compared the prices like for like with Tesco's online Ireland.

Here's a quick break down on the spends.

We spent €196.56 on Grocery in Northern Ireland. All products we purchase are branded products and not Tesco brands.

Direct comparison to Tesco on-line for the exact same products would of cost €321.83

Total saving of €125.57 or a massive 39% saving on Irish Prices and easily justifies the €40 on petrol not to mention the savings the savings on alcohol. We also saved greatly on alcohol which I calculated separately and the savings averaged at 34%

But some of the amazing deals were 6packs of Long neck Bulmers for £3.00 (€3.40) but €10.99 (€12.43) here. Powers Irish Whiskey 1Litre £18.94 (€21.41) but circa €37 here. Boru Vodka £9.98(€11.28) but €18.99 here. However none of these appeard to be specials, just regular prices there.

There is something rotten somewhere ...

ladysman123

IrishWhiskeyCha wrote: »

Coincidently I am just back from a trip up the north.

We popped into Tescos and got some shopping. I then compared the prices like for like with Tesco's online Ireland.

Here's a quick break down on the spends.

We spent €196.56 on Grocery in Northern Ireland. All products we purchase are branded products and not Tesco brands.

Direct comparison to Tesco on-line for the exact same products would of cost €321.83

Total saving of €125.57 or a massive 39% saving on Irish Prices and easily justifies the €40 on petrol not to mention the savings the savings on alcohol. We also saved greatly on alcohol which I calculated separately and the savings averaged at 34%

But some of the amazing deals were 6packs of Long neck Bulmers for £3.00 (€3.40) but €10.99 (€12.43) here. Powers Irish Whiskey 1Litre £18.94 (€21.41) but circa €37 here. Boru Vodka £9.98(€11.28) but €18.99 here. However none of these appeard to be specials, just regular prices there.

There is something rotten somewhere ...

what shop exactly was this? Im heading up north to buy drink for a party and want to know where to get the best deals!

IrishWhiskeyCha

ladysman123 wrote: »

what shop exactly was this? Im heading up north to buy drink for a party and want to know where to get the best deals!

We went to Tesco's in Enniskillen as they had good deals on wine at the time, £8 for 2 Yellow tail which is a very drinkable cheap party wine. There is also an Asda virtually next to it so it is worth checking them both out and see what offers they have on.

The supermarkets are usually the cheapest anyway.

focus_mad

I live in Dundalk and I go out the Castleblayney road to Culleville and its 15 bottles of miller for 11euro.....

civildefence

flag123 wrote: »

People should in my view...saves money and even the politicians are doing it..:D

When you see the difference in price in places like Curry's, it'd make you want to. And the price of drink! €10 for a bottle of Smirnoff as opposed to the nearly €30 we pay here.

madmoe

BeerNut wrote: »

Care to explain?

How does it get around the rule that:
?

You'll notice, for instance, that SmartSavers.ie (from whom you RecessionBusTours have stolen the shop logos) request "Please do not include any alcohol or tobacco products in your shopping basket as these items are prohibited sorry !" In what way is your RecessionBusTours's set-up different?

Hi all,
A word of warning about http://www.recessionbustours.ie/, they are a complete shower of idiots and I hope you do not have the mis fortunate I did in getting mixed up with them.

I ordered a piece of furniture in Argos in the North and wanted them to deliver it to me in Dublin. Firstly, I contacted them through the contact form on their website and asked how much it would be to get said item of furniture delivered to Dublin and I was told no more then €40. I sent them the exact link from the Argos website so they had dimensions, weight etc. Delivery day came and I was then told I had to pay €60 by another person, apparently the guy that runs the show even though I had the e-mail that said €40.
Apparently there are a number of people involved and differnt prices are given out....first warning sign!!

He arrived on his own with a van and my piece of living room furnitire in it, I had though he would at least have had one helper as the unit was big and in tow pieces )second warning sign). With no one else in sight I had to help him bring it into my place only to discover the top part of the unit was badly damaged?? Anyhow, Argos got the blame and he agreed to take the unit back up to the North with him.

Next day I called Argos and in fairness to them they agreed to send out a replacement no questions asked. So the delivery date for the replacement is set to the following week and they will pick up the damaged top half of the unit and replace with a new one. I called yer fella and told him the deal, he re-assured me that he would be back down to deliver the replacement unit the next day after it was delivered and that he would call me beforehand.

I waited, and waited and once again waited..... and with no word from him (not even that call he promised), I decided to call. Turns out Argos came, something magical happened and once again the unit was damaged.....He was unable to tell me who signed for the unit?? There is no way in hell that Argos would come to replace a unit with a damaged one and no way they would leave the new unit without it being signed for so all I can assume is one of his incompetent staff damaged it again if in fact that is the real story??

The moral of it all is that I would never ever use these shower again and would be worried for anyone else that would, especially when it comes to furniture. I have no idea what they are like with delivering anything else but I can sure as hell tell you I won't be finding out!!

Sorry to rave but you know it does good to get these things off one's chest!!

Cheers,
M

kenmc

i'm just curious as to how exactly this furniture buying adventure ends up in beer, wine and spirits? Other than that, meh, Caveat emptor

BeerNut

kenmc wrote: »

i'm just curious as to how exactly this furniture buying adventure ends up in beer, wine and spirits?

Because the company in question was promoting itself as a smuggler-for-hire earlier on.

worded

Czech republic 79 cent for bottle of Pilsner Urquell 500 ml at Lydl

BeerNut

worded wrote: »

Czech republic 79 cent for bottle of Pilsner Urquell 500 ml at Lydl

And how much for the petrol to bring it home?

worded

BeerNut wrote: »

And how much for the petrol to bring it home?

Im here at the moment in Czech drinking it ........ hiiiiic.

God its tasty. went to the town where its brewed Plzen. Interesting tour.

BeerNut

worded wrote: »

Im here at the moment in Czech drinking it

Look out for Kocour beers. Much better than that foreign-owned pseudo-Czech stuff

madmoe

I just felt the need to warn people about that lot @ recessionbustours.ie

Swaine55

where did you get smirnoff for £10, was this some rare special offer?

flag123

Swaine55 wrote: »

where did you get smirnoff for £10, was this some rare special offer?

no i dont think this is some rare offer, its just called "don't get ripped off by rip off republic";)

IrishWhiskeyCha

Things are a changing ... super value Powers €15.99 not sure if it's over today though ... girl at the checkout was saying something but she was not sure.

Tesco's have various slabs of beed for 27.50 (24 x 500ml cans) or Bulmers x 18 cans (Looks like bulmers can't bare to give a full discount)

However a local Galway super market are doing slabs of Carlsberg for €24 so €1 a can.

I've noticed food prices coming down also. These price cuts are mainly in offers but nearly every second thing is on offer these days.

So all people need to do now and just pick up the offers and nothing else. That in it's self weill send a messge to the supermarkets. Because if you don't by buying regular stuff as well your paying the supermarkets back for the offers they are giving you :rolleyes:

We will only get cheaper prices if we the consumer lead the way.

celliman

how much for Dutch gold up there?

Quint

I was just in a Dublin Off Licence that's considered a very good place. O'Neills offie, across from the national stadium. Got a bottle of Cava, advertised at €50, reduced to €20. I got a bottle for a present, but happened to go to an O'Brians and an Odbins on the way to my mates house. Both said the normal price for my cava was €16! Shafted! I drive by O'Neills every day, used to spend about €50 every friday there, but noe I avoid the place like the plague

ha-ya-said-what

Asda or Sainburys I find great up there, Last time I was in Newry

Litre of Smirnoff Vodka: £10
8 or 12 pack of 500ml cans of Magners: £9.99
Bottle of JD: £13

it was bloody jingle jingle all the way home from bottles of vodka rattling away!

What's the off license sales hours for the north anyway?

ha-ya-said-what

celliman wrote: »

how much for Dutch gold up there?

Errrmmm I don't think anyone goes up north to make a saving on Dutch Gold!

1carrot2

The government are the main drivers of higher cost in ROI. Take a €20 bottle of vodka:
Excise = €10.30
VAT = €3.54
Leaving €6.15 to cover manufacture, bottling, packaging, distribution, manufacturers profit, retailers profit.

However, these are the taxes that pay for public sector jobs and pay for public services, pensions and social welfare in our country. The money has to come from somewhere. The tax lost on all the trade going up north will have to be recouped in the form of income tax / other indirect taxes / spending cuts or else we all go down the swanee.

The more money that flows out of this country, the longer we will wallow in this recession.

guildofevil

Which is why a cut in excise duty would make sense. The big saving on booze is what is causing a lot of people to drive north, but while they are there they are buying other stuff which, while not having as large a price differential as alcohol, are still cheaper there.

If the savings on alcohol were not as big, fewer people would bother travelling, leaving more money in the country. That money would be spent here, not in the UK and the VAT would go to our government, not the British one.

The problem is that our government won't do that. They simply look at the current tax take from alcohol, look at how much they would loose from a reduction and discard the idea. The fact that they are already loosing tax money on alcohol and other stuff besides, simply by leaving things as they are, doesn't seem to be sinking in.

Mind you, it's too late anyway. If they were going to do this, they should have done it months ago, before the Christmas rush.

Red Sleeping Beauty

It's gas that Irish whiskey is cheaper in most places in the world outside Ireland. My ma gasped when I told her that little nugget. "Yeah, it's cheaper in EEEEEEEVIL Eng-er-land than it is in good aul Éire!". Hah, anyway...

Yeah excise is far too much especially considering it's a double tax. No chance they'll lower it though and even if they did would the saving be passed on to the end user? Pfftt, no chance.

I don't see any moral question in shopping in Northern Ireland. Good Friday Agreement and the EU, free trade and all that jazz...

Ministerial cars costing the state 200grand a year, now there's a moral quesiton... (obviously not for the Beer, Wine and Spirts forum :-p)