V-Flyer

Hi all again. Just wondered what the prices are really like. Ive heard it's cheaper but would like some tips and advice and possibly some examples of how cheap compared to the uk. Thanks

I think the days of things being a lot cheaper in the US compared to back home are gone for the time being. A lot of it is to do with the exchange rate, when it was $2 to the £ it was a lot cheaper than the current $1.55 or there abouts.

Some things are cheaper, we have just bought back quite a few clothes, which if bought at the UK stores would have been roughly the same in £'s as we paid in $'s.

The things to remember is that the ticket price on the shelf will then have sales tax added at the tills, and that varies state to state, it isn't included like VAT is in the UK stores.

It really depends on what you're after.

For example, on my last trip (which was a couple of weeks ago) my wife asked me to buy her a pair of Uggs which worked about about £100 cheaper than in the UK.

If you know specifically what you want, check out the American version of the website (for example the USA Ugg website) so you can see how much they are in comparison.

You also have to remember to add on NY State tax. (Which I think is about 7%, but ISTBC)

Depends what you are looking to buy really, and how the pound is doing against the dollar.

If you want to go on a shopping trip for clothes, gadgets, bits and bobs I'd personally say to skip NYC and go to BOS where the sales tax is lower.

NYC has a reputation as a shopping mecca, probably because of the plethora of brand names on 5th Ave that are mostly overpriced. The A&F store on 5th has a functioning queue to limit visitors. Sorry, but there is no shop IMO worth queuing in the cold to enter. Things like sundries are usually much cheaper I stock up on things like hairbands from CVS as they are very cheap but the price difference on some watches takes into account the exchange rate so are not any cheaper at all. Any items that have a published price (like Apple goods) are often easy to demonstrate a saving, all our Aple stuff has come from the USA.

It will probably be clothes. footwear. And a few gifts. Ugg boots sound good for mrs and daughter tho.

If you are aftee A&F merchandise in NY, head down to Sout Street Seaport instead of 5th Avenue - no queue, and has a sale section.

My advice would be to avoid 5th Avenue and Midtown

Soho - the area south of Houston St, has all the shops but isn't as packed with tourists as the other areas are. It has a mac store, the ugg store, levi store, etc etc and a branch of Blomingdales. A little further north in Union Square is Nordstrum Rack which is a big discount store. My wife came over with me on one of my trips this year, and she loved that shop, brough loads of stuff and saved a fortune.

for Mac stuff, personally I would go to Tekserve which is on w23rd Street. It's a licensed Mac seller, has all the products at the same prices as the official Mac stores, but (IMHO) better customer services and no crowds! It's quite an old fashioned set up - you go in a person asks what sort of thing you're after and then you're given a numbered ticket and when your number is called you get a dedicated person to serve you.

Richard. I'm probably being thick but what is a@f merchandise?

bigdave wrote:Richard. I'm probably being thick but what is a@f merchandise?

Abercrombie and Fitch.

And if you go to Macy's don't forget to apply for the discount card:

"International Visitors can use the Welcome International Savings Card, which is available in ten languages and offers 10% savings in all Macy's stores nationwide for 30 days after validation."

You can download the form from the website.

Regards
R3dV

Ditto on the Macys discount card (also look in the news papers for discount coupons that offer a bigger % off but restricted to certain lines but its good to have both !

Old Navy for casual clothes (opposite Macys) and Century 21 down near the WTC site good too.

Museum Shops offer a wide range of unusual gifts.

I'm with HighFlyer - any shop that demands I queue to get into does not deserve my custom ! (and anyone who does queue deserves to get cold and wet!)

Do what I do and order stuff from Amazon.com rather than .co.uk and have it delivered to hotel (after comparing UK prices !). You can check before confirming the order if tax will be applied (it varies from state to state). You need to allow longer for postage as USPS is slower than Royal Mail but as with UK you can pay for faster delivery.

Many US companies will allow you to bill your Credit Card to your UK address but deliver to a US one but not all do.

NYC shopping is all about selection, and to a lesser extent pricing. Macy's is great for a huge selection and good pricing on "dress down" clothes - Levi jeans for £20-£25 for example. They also have sales all the time, although mostly for Macy's card holders.

I like Barney's though for several floors of more upscale men's clothing.

Boston's great (I lived there for 20 years), but I wouldn't go there just to save 2% in the sales tax!

If you get into the upper west side try Filene's Basement for some real bargains.

Agree with most of the above, especially with the $/£ ratio at the moment. All I'd add is that it's still great to get stuff you can't buy here. But that probably applies more to outlet malls than to NYC itself.