Tax free goods across Europe’s 10 busiest airports are on average only 6.2% cheaper than their equivalent in local high street stores, according to Kelkoo’s latest study.
These findings will come as a shock to half of the UK consumers who believed that ‘tax free’ airport stores offer average savings of 20% or more compared to recommended retail prices on the high street.
Tax free shopping is big business for European airports, with consumers spending over £2.5bn last year alone, making savings of 6.2% (£168m) compared to standard high street prices.
However, by shopping online for the same goods, consumers could have saved a further 6.1% (£156m), which would have equated to a total saving of 12% (£324m) over high street stores.
The study focuses on tax free shopping (free of VAT) for travellers whose journeys start and end within the EU, rather than duty free shopping (free of VAT and excise duty), which was abolished in 1999 by EU member states and is now only available to travellers starting or ending their journey outside the EU.
A mystery shopping exercise was carried out for a representative basket of 22 products with a strong pan-European sales footprint, spanning five key categories (health & beauty; luxury, fashion & electricals; wines & spirits; tobacco; fine foods & confectionary), and prices were gathered from European airport ‘tax free’ retail outlets and online retailers.
These prices were then benchmarked against the average RRP in local high street stores. The 10 airports selected for the purpose of the study represent a sample of European countries and accounted for 80% of European passenger traffic in 2009.
Bruce Fair, managing director of Kelkoo UK, said: “Airports create the perfect environment for shopping, as people have time to kill, a holiday feel-good-factor, and extra cash in their pockets.
“However, they don’t always create the most competitive environment for prices, and 11 years on from the end of ‘duty-free’ there is still the perception that tax free shopping offers the best deals.
“In reality, higher overheads, decreased competition and less choice means that ‘tax free’ shops are not always the hunting ground for bargains that people think they are. In fact, airside retailers simply cannot compete with online retail for the best prices.”
The report also identified London Heathrow and Berlin, as the European airports offering the worst overall tax free discounts compared to the high-street.
Source: Kelkoo
