Who buys what, where and why is no big mystery in the retail business. Superquinn, for example, sell more beer on the northside of Dublin than on the southside where customers apparently prefer to quaff wine.

The results of basic sales and marketing research are a major influence on supermarkets all over the country. Increasingly, retailers are tailor-making their stores to the communities in which they operate.

In the case of Superquinn, the shelf space afforded to wine and beer increases or decreases according to the store's location and customers' purchasing patterns.

A Sunday newspaper reported that Tesco UK have introduced something it calls local pricing. If introduced here, it would mean a loaf of bread would be cheaper in a store in say, Tallaght, than in a suburb such as Blackrock.

Three hundred Tesco outlets are participating in a scheme which sees what are known as "price sensitive" customers paying less for a range of items than more wealthy shoppers.

Tesco Ireland says it has no plans to introduce a similar pricing strategy here. According to a spokesman, the Irish operation acts entirely independently of Britain. There would be nothing to stop them if supermarkets across the country wanted to introduce this initiative. According to Ms Anne Hynes, of the Office of Consumer Affairs, as long as supermarkets sell above the cost price, they are perfectly entitled to have prices fluctuate from store to store.

To a certain degree local pricing is already in operation here. The chief executive of Superquinn, Mr Feargal Quinn, said that while the company have a policy of uniform pricing, "we give the freedom to local managers to bring prices down".

This would not happen for demographic reasons, he said, but because a competitor in the area had also reduced the price of certain items.

Marks and Spencer says that it has no plans to depart from its unilateral pricing policy. However, location can sometimes influence the overall dynamic of its stores.

The new Liffey Valley Centre, five miles west of Dublin on the M50, will be open by the end of the month. It is only the second country in Europe where Marks and Spencer is located to occupy an "out of town" store.

"It isn't a precise science, there isn't too much deviation from the norm," said a Marks and Spencer spokeswoman. The issue of opening hours and parking become even more relevant in a outlet that is not city-centre based.

"It would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that it is a different shopper. It is the same shopper, they just have different shopping patterns. Our search has been more geared towards these patterns than the customer profile which is something we are already very familiar with," she said.

On the other hand, an outlet like the Finsbury Pavement, Marks and Spencer store in the heart of the City of London, required a considerable departure to normal retailing methods. Key staff conducted several "walk-abouts" in the area to judge exactly the type of clientele they were dealing with.

The unique environment boasts a population that is just there for City hours and not in the evening or weekends. It meant that trading patterns would be clearly defined.

Demands on staff at peak times (lunch time and early evening) would be greater and more concentrated than in other stores. In addition, the store became the first Marks and Spencer to offer made-for-measure tailoring - a must for all those brokers with a penchant for bespoke suits.

Meanwhile, Tesco Ireland is spending £75 million upgrading and refurbishing each one of its 78 stores. While the group is constrained by physical parameters and planning laws, stores are being adapted wherever possible in response to customer demands. According to Ms Sarah Morris of Tesco, a retail unit was transformed into a Tesco trolley bay in The Square, Tallaght, as a direct result of customer input.

In Lower Baggot Street in Dublin, the customer mix of apartment dwelling couples, office workers and elderly means that opening hours are more flexible. "Also, they are mainly basket shoppers, so things like drinks and sandwiches are placed towards the front," she said.

Superquinn calls it a "listening system". "We regularly get groups of around 20 customers and ask them about the things they would like to see changed," says Mr Quinn. "Our research comes from being close to the customer." The consumer, by all accounts, continues to be king.