Chinese

ElkyElky

I went into my local "chinese" take-away to grab a bag of chips after work. (I hate calling these places "chinese" since there's nothing chinese about their food, other than the chinese person cooking it).

I noticed a big notice on the window saying everything on their menu has increased by 20p to reflect the 20% VAT change.. but it suddenly clicked that they'd only need to increase it by 2.5%.

It makes me angry that any company is allowed to sneakily use the VAT increase as an excuse to increase prices, needless to say I walked out of the chinese and used the one right next door to them and saved 30p in the process.

Fair enough if they must increase prices but don't blooming try and disguise it as part of the VAT increase. :mad:

Rolandtheroadie

How much was the bag of chips?

nuttywoman

Me & hubby said the same about Burger King , they doing the same , an extra £2 on our bill there, i could`nt understand how that happened specially since Amazon kindle only went up by £2 because of vat increase !

peter_the_piper

All the supermarkets and larger stores have done the same.

tersus_slate

ElkyElky wrote: »

needless to say I walked out of the chinese and used the one right next door to them and saved 30p in the process.

vyle

nuttywoman wrote: »

Me & hubby said the same about Burger King , they doing the same , an extra £2 on our bill there, i could`nt understand how that happened specially since Amazon kindle only went up by £2 because of vat increase !

The kindle is in a lot of ways a loss leader for amazon. Once you've got it, you're buying books from them, which is far more profitable.

As for increasing price, consider how much work goes into the VAT change.

All the signage needs to be changed, any adverts on TV will need to change to reflect the price -- or shoot new ones with new prices.

In shops more than restaurants especially, there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done to make the changes and that all costs money which is then passed on.

A small local takeaway probably hasn't got that much to do though and I expect their maths were a bit off.

But then, their supplier might have put their prices up by a large amount.

woohoo_postingid

Food prices are going up all the time, not just vat so maybe they were just due for an increase.

PZH

ElkyElky wrote: »

Fair enough if they must increase prices but don't blooming try and disguise it as part of the VAT increase. :mad:

woohoo_postingid wrote: »

Food prices are going up all the time, not just vat so maybe they were just due for an increase.

Yes, but a lot of places are hiding increases behind the VAT increase. (or simply using it as an excuse to increase their prices anyway ?)

Oopsadaisy

Their pre-increase prices should only have gone up by 2.1%

fluffnutter

Shops can charge what they like. And I wouldn't say it was particularly sneaky if they've stuck a 'big notice in the window'! Vote with your feet and shop elsewhere. As you did.

VfM4meplse

Did you get your full enjoyment out of the cheaper bag of chips though??