To think that shops charging non-locals higher prices is not on?

[BBInGinDrinking]

We're on a family holiday staying in a rural coastal cottage in the UK and have been doing all our grocery shopping at the local stores in the nearest villages. I discovered on the last visit to a general store in one village that they have two sets of prices - lower ones for locals and higher ones for visitors.

Who knew?! Is this a thing?!

I knew it existed abroad but not here in the UK. It’s disgraceful!

Wow that's outrageous!

Is it legal? I'd be very tempted to fill a basket with lots of stuff and then just leave it at the till for them to put back (yes i am hugely petty), and then drive to the nearest town to do a big shop. Its out of order.

Blimey.

Are you holidaying in Royston Vasey, OP?

That's diabolical. You should name and shame.

Wow. Surely they can’t know everyone who lives nearby, so how do they determine who is who?

I live abroad and there are 2 sets of prices, ones the tourists pay and ones for locals, it'll all go back to normal end of September here

Not particularly surprised

Profiting off tourists is quite standard isn't it, so is doing stuff extra for regulars etc

I can't get too worked up about it

Happens in markets and things all the time, although based on what you look like you'll pay rather than local etc

Never heard of this but it sounds fair to me. The local are the ones that keep the shop going all year. The tourists only use it for one or two weeks of the year.

I think it sounds old fashioned and quite a good idea .

Really? Where is this? Name and shame!

I haven’t seen it but it wouldn’t bother me. Call it a tourism subsidy.

That's awful, would put me off going there again... it's very short sighted

I would be walking round with my calculator in hand!

That's diabolical. You should name and shame

Name and shame a shop in a rural village. I think a high majority on here probably would never have shopped there anyway .... but go ahead

DS 1 is at Uni in Wales, and in some of the pubs they (allegedly) ask what you want in Welsh, and charge more/less depending on whether you can answer in Welsh or not- don’t know if this is true, but generally the English students avoid those pubs, so even if it’s just a rumour it keeps the Welsh pub Welsh! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

It was a genuine thing in Post-Soviet Russia, and the “foreigner” prices were openly displayed next to the “local” prices - they were completely upfront about it. Even if you were a legal resident, if you weren’t native Russian you got charged foreigner prices (which was great as a broke language student I can tell you).

Not really a thing in the UK, and I grew up in a seaside resort. Locals got charged inflated tourist prices as well as non-locals. You just learned not to shop in the tourist shops.

I can imagine some shops might do “mates rates” discounts for their direct friends and neighbours, but I am but am surprised if your local shop had cheaper prices for any random local. Unless it was Cornwall, they are pretty protectionist there. I saw a pub with a “no tourists” sign in the window in Newquay a couple of years ago. Was it in Cornwall OP?

I couldn’t get too worked up about this.

If it’s a v touristy area the locals are potentially dealing with being priced out of their local area because of people buying second homes that they only spend 1/4 of the year in, their summer months spent seeing their local town or village rammed full of tourists and then come autumn/winter the place is dead as hector.

If their local shop wants to charge me as a tourist 20p more for a can of beans in order to make things a bit easier for people who live there all year round, fair enough.

It seems short sighted as once people feel they are paying more than necessary they will buy elsewhere or bring stuff with them. You expect this in African markets but not UK shops

Hmmm. Not sure of the legalities, but if you think of any "buying something" as having a clearing price where someone is willing to sell it and someone is willing to buy it, then why not?

Take, for example, beer. If you live in London you'll think nothing of paying £6.50 for a pint. If you live in rural *shire local wages can't support £6.50 a pint so there's little demand for it at that price. On the supply side, there's little need for it to be so dear because wages and pub rent are lower. So, the clearing price for beer will be lower. But, if you allow differential pricing then someone from London should (in theory) value the pint at £6.50 and therefore be happy to pay that price if it's the price on the board. Why should it be cheaper for them when they're willing to pay more?

Also, local shops have to trade year round, even when the tourists have all gone back to whence they came. If they lose local trade over the summer by charging uniformly high prices local folks' shopping habits will change and the shops won't survive, so there'll be no nice local shops to use the next time you're on holiday.

I know of a lot of restaurants that run summer v winter menus at vastly different price points (a version of the same thing), or quiet summer discounts for people they see year round because come January they're the folk who are covering the wage bill.

I'm surprised that is legal. It's discrimination.

We have a local shop that was saved by villagers putting in money. There is one price for the investors and one for others. The investors probably will never get their money back so some discount is the only benefit they get.
Are you sure this is not the case?

Seems totally reasonable to me. Most nice holiday spots, the holiday homers and retirees have gutted the local community, driven up house prices so that locals in their 20s and 30s have to live in caravans not homes and made everything miserable. Seems perfectly reasonable to expect the holiday makers to pay a premium price.

'Tourist' is not a protected characteristic 😁

@HandsReachingOut how on Earth is it discrimination?!

ZipWorld adventures (zip wire etc) currently giving huge discount for locals who live in their LL postcode... bit of a kicker for those of us willing to travel.