NOTHING BETTER illustrates the sizeable challenge that cross-Border shopping presents to retailers in the Republic than recent market research data from Northern Ireland. The research findings showed that in December two British supermarkets, Sainsburys and Asda, had taken a 2.5 per cent share of the grocery market in the Republic.
Neither company, however, operates outlets south of the Border. Quite clearly, very many shoppers crossed the Border to benefit from lower grocery prices in Northern Ireland.
The buoyancy of the retail trade in Northern Ireland is in marked contrast to the depressed state of that sector in the Republic. At a retailing conference earlier this week, Checkout magazine editor John Ruddy outlined some worrying statistics. Retail sales were at a 24-year low here, having fallen by 3 per cent in December while job losses in the sector were averaging 1,000 each week.
The contrasting fortunes of the retail sector, North and South, have been well researched. Sterling’s dramatic fall against the euro has magnified trading difficulties for retailers in the Republic. As price differentials for consumer goods have widened, Northern Ireland has attracted many more budgetconscious shoppers from the Republic. Retailers in the South insist the higher price of goods reflects the higher cost of doing business. But Forfás, the national policy advisory body for enterprise and science, has refuted that claim. It found that large price differences for the same goods sold in the Republic and Northern Ireland were not explained simply by higher business costs.
The latest survey by the National Consumer Agency (NCA), which involved a price comparison on a range of household items (such as clothing, houseware and electrical goods), shows that consumers here are paying 51 per cent more than their British counterparts. Last June, an NCA survey found that a selection of grocery items were up to one-third more expensive than in Northern Ireland.
Above all consumers are annoyed at the unwillingness of many retailers to pass on the benefits of a strong euro through lower prices for British goods. Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan has called on them to explain the price differentials between North and South. The failure of retailers either to lower prices or to justify those differentials has encouraged more consumers to shop around, with Newry and Belfast gaining at the Republic’s expense.