They must be reading this post because Alliance Electric and panasonic.ie have both reduced the TV to 1299 now...900 Euro drop in a few months..
I'd say €1299 could be a resonable price in ROI for that TV. It's plausible that it could at a stretch cost €300 more than from RS due to rent/insurance/wages/VAT/reasonable prifit.
It's too late for me, as mine is already on my wall. This'll sound cynical (possibly because it is . . .), but I wonder if this price drop has anything to do with the fact that Panasonic has launched its new range of 2009 TVs, and that the PZ80 range is close to end of life?
I post about this stuff on boards.ie too. There's an Alliance guy on there. He's actually pretty sound, so far as I can tell in this virtual world. My problem is not with the decent floor staff of good shops - it's with the business owners who treat Paddy as a mug.
Imagine you worked on the shop floor for Harvey Norman and I came in to ask you why your TH-50PY80 costs €800 more than the effectively-identical-in-all-but-name TH-50PZ80 that I bought in Belfast.
What range of answers could you offer?
"My wages are so high, they have to pay for them somehow"?
"This TV makes you happier"?
"Rent/insurance for this shop is dearer than the rent/insurance for the shop you bought it from"?
"Harvey likes his Maserati Gran Tourismo S, and he has to pay for it somehow"?
"Look mate, I just work here - I buy all my own hi-fi stuff from Richersounds in Belfast too, cos even with my staff discount, RS is still cheaper than HN"?
I drove to Belfast on Monday to collect some stuff.
From RS, I got a Pioneer VSX-818 amp (£170) & DV-410 DVD player (£70), and a 5.1 set of Yamaha NSP-110 speakers (£90).
While walking through Castlecourt mall, I nipped into GAME. I've been planning on getting an XBox and wanted to check out their prices. I walked out with an XBox 360 Elite, a 2nd controller, a quick-charge dock for two controller batteries, 2 rechargeable batteries, Kung-Fu Panda & Lego Indiana Jones for the kids and Dead Space, Halo 3 & Mass Effect for me. For £287 (€322 today).
I'll leave it to those of you interested enough to find out what all that would have cost down here, but I'll point you to Argos as one example for the 360 Elite + one controller: €250. No games, no charger, no rechargeable batteries.
Speaking of Argos, again while in Castlecourt, I nipped into Argos and bought speaker brackets for £9 (€10.10 today). In Argos in Dublin, the exact same brackets are €13.49.
Gimme a "G"! Gimme an "R"! Gimme an "E"! Gimme an "E"! . . . . . . .
Well, you know the rest.
Dont if this point has been made before but We have always been used to paying more without questioning.
It begins at Government charges on Houses, Cars, medical, Electricial goods (duty used to be even higher), Gas, Electricity & the cost of policital representatives. All astronomical charges with a myriad of excuses justifying why each charge is required to be higher in our country than in others.
Retailers take their cue from there and price accordingly.
Its in out ethos to pay more and mostly we dont even realise the descrepancies.
Some countrys are like that.
Someone, some-ones, make decisions on what to charge Paddy. Paddy has been a mug. Paddy accepts really bad treatment. Paddy is conditioned to believe that there is no alternative. No alternative price to €1999 for a 50" TV. No alternative to Fianna Fail. No alternative to half the money he pays for his car going to the "government". No alternative to the "government" flushing the money they take off Paddy straight down the jax. No alternative to waiting 9 months for the results of a smear test. No alternative to fearing walking the one mile home after a night in the pub. No alternative to corrupt bankers/developers/politicians manipulating Paddy's constitution in the sole interest of self-advancement and self-preservation, in the full conscious knowledge that Paddy the Mug will suffer big-time for a long time as a direct consequence of their actions, while they won't feel the slightest ounce of discomfort because their deliberate actions have secured a recession-proof existence for them and their families and friends, and generations of decendants of same. No alternative to the inept and corrupt policing, judgement and punishment of those corrupt bankers/developers/politicians. No alternative to the "government" flushing more of Paddy's money down the jax. Paddy accepts "that's just how it is".
Okay, so the split isn't as simple as greedy immoral capitalists and mugs, but there are more mugs than there are greedy immoral capitalists.
I'm tired now. I might go and watch Transformers again on my big TV. Then none of this'll matter till I wake up again tomorrow . . .
Mark