Lidl offers

A bit too late unfortunately, I restocked on cheap Stanley knives from Toolstation a couple of weeks ago.

What will happen to Lidl & Aldi prices if we leave the EU? ;-)

Well they should fall as the Euro tanks.

They will come down as they are sourcing goods from China and food prices are lower in the world market than in the EU.

The pound would plunge immediately after Brexit, due to uncertainty. The euro would also fall against the dollar, but not by so much.

There is nothing to prevent Lidl purchasing goods from China now - which I'm sure it does do anyway. The price of these goods will go up sharply after Brexit, as the pound will plunge against the dollar.

It's a good point. Most of the Lidl tools are marked as being of German origin - including this knife. Even on the knife itself.

And their power tools - or rather those I've checked on.

Now given they seem to be as good as any at the budget end and no more expensive, either they're not made in Germany, or it is possible to compete with the Chinese with such things.

I have no experience of supplying them with power tools but I do know they they (and Aldi) buy stationery products from UK suppliers.

Mike

Which could just mean they order a box of blades from China and a box of handles from India and screw them together in Germany

Interesting. They can then source and sell UK made products etc in the UK at a good price - but the general view is 'we' can't compete with the low labour rates and lack of regulations and so on the far east benefits from.

Dave Plowman (News) a écrit :

They would seem to be mostly from former east German companies, but likely originally sourced from China.

The Euro would plunge immediately after Brexit, due to uncertainty. The pound would surge against the dollar, but not by so much. >

So much for 'the uncertainty of brexit' That seems very certain, in your eyes... one is reminded of 'the science is settled, but we need a another trillion dollars for scientific research' from the 'Climb-it' community.

Of course the answer is that actually no one knows. New Zealand lamb will probably come down, and, as the Euro tanks, a lot of European produce too.

African food will be cheaper too. Once we are free to trade outside the close EU markets with their tariff barriers to protect the French and East European agricultural sectors.

With luck brexit will break up the EU and everything will get cheaper as European countries have to either lower their currency valuations, or get more efficient to compete in a free world market, rather than being protected by EU tariffs and subsidies

I said they buy from UK suppliers. Not UK manufacturers!

Mike

And /if/ "the pound will plunge against the dollar" UK made goods will become more attractive abroad. That's good for UK manufacturing! :-)

It seems the EU will not need out help to break up. France & Italy could be the next European economies to crash. As they are denied the option of devaluation, both countries have relied on debt-funded public spending to maintain economic activity and living standards. They both share problems of slow growth, unemployment, poor public finances and structural problems. They have found it difficult to reform and face an increasingly tough political environment. But the /real/ problem is the lack of competitiveness, and underlying many of these problems is the single currency.

The sliding mitre saw gives a german name, Walter Werkzeug iirc, but is still made in China.

NT

The items they sell cheap tend to be stuff that isn't built by hand. We can in general compete with china on stuff that is built by robots (as long as the unions aren't demanding one robot + one man which they have been known to do).

But the standard of living in the UK will fall.

Thinking of Lidl offers, this weekend I asked where to find their "?5 off ?40" vouchers which used to be in lots of newspapers and was told to try the Mail/Metro and also perhaps Lidl's web site.

Has anyone found this voucher on their site? I haven't.