There we were, hopelessly lost in the New York subway. The clock was ticking; we were supposed to meet some friends for lunch and there was no option but to swallow our pride and ask for help. I approached two young women loaded with shopping bags. ‘No idea, mate. We’re from Brighton.’ When we eventually crawled out of the subway, my wife and I decided to play a new game: spot the British shopper. The women were especially entertaining — they hunt in packs, stay in slightly grotty hotels in Midtown, camp out at Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s and the cheap electronics shops on Broadway, and generally behave like children in a sweet-shop. For Manhattan may be prohibitively expensive by US standards, but to Brits it is a shopping heaven.
Identical goods sold by identical retailers cost much less in America. Even I was shocked to discover last weekend that a top-of-the-range video iPod costs $379.99, or £204.33 at current exchange rates, from Amazon.com, the US retailer; but that on Amazon.co.uk, the UK website, it sells for £268.99. Clothes, books, newspapers and consumer goods are bargains in America; so are all kinds of services, from manicures to eating out. Cars are also cheaper, as of course is petrol, which still only costs 37p a litre in America despite the rocketing oil price. Outside the big cities, hotels are also extremely good value.
The best way to find out just how much cheaper New York is compared to London is to hit the shops — and that is exactly what David Hillier and George Johns, economists at Barclays Capital, did in a recent study. They surveyed identical goods and stuck to shops of the same brand in similar locations, such as HMV on Fifth Avenue and Canary Wharf.
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