Remember the days when most people used to go to Derry for their main shopping of the week? I remember once counting that 35 out of 100 cars in the car park at Sainsbury’s had Donegal licence plates. As people from Derry probably got a smaller shopping and could come daily or every couple of days and Moville people tended to get a a week or two weeks worth of groceries, it’s possible that the majority of Sainsbury’s trade was from Donegal.
Price Comparison
However, CraicOn did a price comparison between Sainsbury’s and Gillens in Moville of ten well-known items of shopping. Gillens was cheaper in 7 out of the ten. When you factored in that you had to change from Euro to sterling it was 8 out of 10. If you took in the cost of going to Derry it changed the game again.
Last time I did the full count a few months ago there were only 13 out of 100 cars in the car park with Donegal number plates.
Just a few days ago I looked at 51 cars and only 3 had Donegal plates. You can see that people are buying more in Gillens and get larger loads of shopping from there.
Threat
Now, however, there is a new threat to Moville businesses and that is the weakness of the pound. After going into the one-twenties against sterling the euro is now trading at just €1.14 to the pound – and sterling is predicted to go lower.
That will make it more expensive for people to shop in Moville if that prediction comes true. It will also make it more expensive for tourists coming here from the north and the UK mainland. That would be bad news for the tourist season this year.
Ireland doesn’t have the luxury of being able to devalue like Britain does. It’s stuck in a Euro that stopped doing it favours a good few years back.
Let’s hope that sterling doesn’t get any lower or it will be bad for Moville just when the tourists are consulting their calendars and making decisions for this year.