Shopping. Have I mentioned before how much I can't stand it? I thought I had. So it doesn't take much to distract or amuse me during my annual outing into an endless number of stores that I would otherwise happily avoid from now until Kingdom come.
On Sunday I was in a store called Wallis (I think that was it) when the price tags caught my eye. They had prices in both pounds and euros. At first I thought they were giving us the Irish pound equivalent, but no, they were sterling prices. I guess they didn't want to have to produce two separate price tags for their operation in Ireland - north and south?
What really caught my eye was that the exchange rates were all over the place. (I'm working from memory, so my numbers may be off, but the gist of this is right.) Every item that was £25 was €45. And, any item that was £27 was €47 and any item that was £35 was also €55.
Ignoring VAT for a moment, how can one item have an exchange rate of €1.80 per £1.00 while another has a rate of €1.57 for every £1? So this had me amused for a few minutes until I started thinking about VAT. The Irish rate is 21% and the UK rate is, I believe, 17% (but I'm not sure if that is the rate on clothes).
Like I said, it takes little to amuse me when I'm shopping. So, as I stood there and started doing some mental math I started to realize that even allowing for VAT, the exchange rate was not really that close to the official €1.47 for every £1, particularly on those lower priced items.
It's one thing to feel like you're being overcharged for items, but it's another all together for a company to flaunt their overcharging so blatantly and still expect you to part with your cash. No purchases were made in Wallis.
