Local Spars

Warper

Went into my local Spar last week (on Pearse St) and was looking at a packet of the Denny's Carvery Ham. Fair enough a normal pack with 5 slices cost €3.99 (it costs €2.99 in Dunnes but I was knew this anyways). Next to it was a packet of the same ham with 20% extra free on the cover and guess what it cost €4.68. What a shower of robbin b**tards.

Kintarō Hattori

Warper wrote: »

Went into my local Spar last week (on Pearse St) and was looking at a packet of the Denny's Carvery Ham. Fair enough a normal pack with 5 slices cost €3.99 (it costs €2.99 in Dunnes but I was knew this anyways). Next to it was a packet of the same ham with 20% extra free on the cover and guess what it cost €4.68. What a shower of robbin b**tards.

I know they are convenience stores and only meant for small bits and bobs but when you're being charged so much it's sickening. I only use Spar/Centra these days for their bargains and nothing else. I buy my lunch in Tesco.

stepbar

Warper wrote: »

Went into my local Spar last week (on Pearse St) and was looking at a packet of the Denny's Carvery Ham. Fair enough a normal pack with 5 slices cost €3.99 (it costs €2.99 in Dunnes but I was knew this anyways). Next to it was a packet of the same ham with 20% extra free on the cover and guess what it cost €4.68. What a shower of robbin b**tards.

You don't have to buy them. More fool to the people who do. The Spars of this world will learn when the have to throw out half of their produce because no one is buying.

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

ScouseMouse

Try to find one at seven in the morning or christmas day. Thats why they are called convenience stores.

They are open when nearly everyone else is closed.

Of course you pay for it....

Davidth88

Actually my local Tescos is now open 24hrs .

I use my local shop for the papers, and the occasional sweet.

Its a shame to me there are very few non franchised stores around . I am under the impression ( maybe wrongly ) that Spars/Londis/Gala have to buy their goods from certain suppliers who keep their prices quite high , this means very little margin for the stores themsleves.

Of course there are very few ( if any ) ' independant ' wholesalers around , so in effect the small stores are ' between a rock and a hard place ' .

Superscouse being in the business can you tell me is my impression totally wrong ?

cormie

I had a bit of time before a job once and there was a Spar beside where I was meeting the chap, was feeling a bit peckish but not starving, went to the deli and asked how much a salad sandwich would be, I forget what it was, but it was 40c per topping, that's 40c for a bit of sweetcorn, now because I just wanted a salad sandwich and no meat, I would have been asking for about 8 different salads which would have brought the total to over €6. So I left it.

Spent a while looking for other food, in fact, I spent quite a while in the shop and I even got a phone call which made me stay even longer and ended up picking up a punnet of grapes and a mandarin. I couldn't see a price for the grapes, but I saw a sign saying grapes for €2 a punnet. I wasn't sure if I had the €2 ones, there was no price on the ones I had and I couldn't see the €2 ones anywhere. While I was in the queue I decided, ok buying power and all that I'll allow €3.50 for the grapes and 50c for the mandarin, more than the bigger stores but understandable. The total came to about €5.35, I think the grapes were about €4.50 and the mandarin about 75/80c:eek: I asked again how much and asked how much was each and just said no thanks, that's far too expensive. This was the same guy who saw me refusing the sandwich too. I put them both back where I got them and after being in the shop about 20 minutes, left with nothing

Now just to compare, there's an independent food shop in Dalkey called Select Stores and you can get 4 huge mandarins for €1, it was 6 when they were a bit smaller and I think their grapes are much more fairly priced too. Spar would have far greater buying power than this store so I'm guessing they have a far greater mark up.

For convenience it can be worth the extra bit alright but with prices like that I'd only buy in an emergency.

Blue_Wolf

They are convenience stores. They aren't there for your weekly shopping. They are there for when you forgot to get something in your weekly shopping and not bothered to go back and queue up for 30mins when you can pay an extra 1euro and save so much hassle.

ejmaztec

Our local Spar has shopping trollies, as well as baskets, and operates as if it is a supermarket, though God knows why anyone in their right mind would get their weekly shopping there, given the prices of most things.

bcirl03

What amazes me is people who do a weekly shop in M&S - a full trolley in there and you'd need to take out a mortgage!

ejmaztec

bcirl03 wrote: »

What amazes me is people who do a weekly shop in M&S - a full trolley in there and you'd need to take out a mortgage!

That's one of the draw-backs of trying to climb up the social ladder, which unfortunately leads to bankruptcy in some cases.:(

Given my local Spar, it's probably the same pricing as M&S, but without any of the quality.

RiverWilde

cormie wrote: »

I had a bit of time before a job once and there was a Spar beside where I was meeting the chap.

I know this is a bit off topic but what sort of job do you do?

Riv

ejmaztec

RiverWilde wrote: »

I know this is a bit off topic but what sort of job do you do?

Riv

Perhaps he's a professional shopper.

cormie

ejmaztec wrote: »

Perhaps he's a professional shopper.

Well I kind of am Man with a Van transport which includes going to Ikea and doing shopping for customers, very high stress levels associated with Ikea shopping

calex71

People here seem to be embarrassed about saying "ah no it's ok , it's too expensive " when the goods are rung up on the till.

Was in a convenience place recently getting a roll, not my normal place where the exact same roll costs 3.55 and 3.60 in a similar place close by.

I was feeling lazy and didn't want to walk down the other end of the street so stopped at a place I wouldnt normally be near and got my roll. Cashier said that will be €4.90 please :eek: had no problem telling him to keep it, politely of course, actually pretty much what I said was " What ? that same roll is only 3.55 down the road" he when to check with the girl at the deli to see if it had been priced correctly, came back and said yes €4.90 please,

Me "Ah I wont pay that much for it sorry , I'll go down the road" and I did !!
I did feel guilty about the fact that roll was likely heading for the bin but my wallet certainly didn't feel any guilt what so ever. The cashier said "Oi here you can't do that, it's made up and all what will I do with the thing now" as I was leaving

Our man in Havana

I have often done that. Whilst it is an inconvenience to the cashier there is feck all they can do if you refuse to pay.

Zamboni

calex71 wrote: »

The cashier said "Oi here you can't do that, it's made up and all what will I do with the thing now" as I was leaving

I wouldn't be losing sleep over it
I did the same in the Spar near the RDS. A sandwich and tea was €2 more than the exact same thing in the Spar half a mile away beside Waterloo Road.

ejmaztec

They've almost finished building a new fuel station in Listowel, and Ive just noticed that the attached shop is going to be a Spar Express.:(

The only place that I've seen a cheap Spar, albeit a Eurospar, was in the back of beyond in the Czech Republic.

Cabaal

bcirl03 wrote: »

What amazes me is people who do a weekly shop in M&S - a full trolley in there and you'd need to take out a mortgage!

M&S much like Superquinn have never pushed the fact that they have cheap brands, they've always pushed the fact they sell good quality stock which imho they do