A sense of proportion in crossborder shopping: what the most recent statistics show

Magennis, Eoin; MacFeely, Stephen; Gough, Aidan

A sense of proportion in crossborder shopping: what the most recent statistics show

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Published version

Date

2010

Authors

Magennis, Eoin

MacFeely, Stephen

Gough, Aidan

Publisher

Centre for Cross Border Studies

Abstract

Since late 2008 the issue of cross-border shopping has been a favourite topic of media interest and speculation. Stories emerged around Christmas 2008 about ASDA in Enniskillen being the sixth top performing store in the global Wal-Mart chain worldwide.1 Around the same time Irish Minister of Finance, Brian Lenihan, made the comment that ‘people should do their patriotic duty’ and shop locally rather than across the border.2 The response from the retail industry lobby groups, North and South, has fed the story. One claim was that every 150 cross-border trips costs one retail job in Ireland. Contestable, headline grabbing statements such as ‘British shops’ war on Irish’, and ‘Shoppers going North are not traitors’ fuelled misguided perceptions.3 Unfortunately, much of what has been written is based on an imprecise extrapolation from small sample-based surveys and anecdotal evidence from shop owners. In the absence of robust statistics, a sense of perspective on cross-border shopping was in danger of being lost.

Keywords

Cross-border shopping , Northern Ireland , Quarterly National Household Survey

Citation

Magennis, E., S. MacFeely and Gough, A. (2010) 'A sense of proportion in Cross-Border shopping: What the most recent statistics show', Journal of Cross-Border Studies in Ireland, 5, pp. 47-56.