We do shop across the borders, but not to reduce costs. The change in relative costs doesn't really apply to us, but it is always good to have that information anyway. We go Zurich to Loerrach and on to Mulhouse, maybe once a month, or every five weeks.
One reason we go is that it's opportunity to get some things that are either stupidly too expensive or just plain not available in Switzerland, and are in-stock at nice prices in the EU. Things like Irish steak, certain drinks, some cereal and biscuit types, T-45 baking flour, those sorts of thing.
I do enjoy being able to give the car a good warming up on the Autobahn en route without running a risk of a Swiss speeding ticket, even if the winter tyres do limit me to 240kph only. The fuel cost differential is also a very useful thing to see, and I can choose which location to refuel in with crossing three cantons and two EU countries.
I use that trip to collect any packages I have in the paketdepot as well, as some of the suppliers for one of my hobbies only ship to EU addresses. A bit annoying but still something I can easily work around.
I think when we worked it out, the trip overall costs us maybe 30 CHF over what getting the same things in Zurich would cost, but it's a nice trip for us, so cheap at the cost.
"TBH - I shop in France for the quality and variety of the food, and a huge reason, because the cashiers actually take care with the produce."
That made me laugh because I was a cashier in an Marks and Spencer Food Hall way back at the end of 2003, I just needed some temp Christmas work as a fill in until I got another job as I'd not long moved back to Scotland from London.
We used to get some very rude customers and in the run up to Christmas it got worse as everyone was stressed out. One day I asked a colleague how he dealt with people like that and he said it was simple, if they had something soft like a trifle or a sponge cake when he packed their bags he would put something heavy like potatoes on top of it
Believe me, if you want to find out how rude and obnoxious the public can be, work in retail. I've done it twice, first time when I was a mature student in the early 90s and I have total respect for anyone who does that job. I also used to get annoyed at people asking for refunds on goods because they claimed they were stale but they'd eaten half of (for example a box of jam tarts that had a huge bite out of every one )
Good cote de boeuf is NOT euro 16.-- in France, milk cow cote de boeuf maybe !
And if you don't feel high and mighty then he's not referring to you.
I did find prices were going up a fair bit in Germany earlier in the year so I stopped bothering to go. However, I went to Weil Am Rhein last weekend as we had a parcel to collect and when I bought some things it was like prices had come down again (REWE, never went to Marktkauf).
I worked my way through high school and college. Quite a bit of retail. A lot of time spent working at Sears, where we had our catalog department and the early computer ordering system (this was early 1980s so nothing on line externally) and with some basic information, I could easily find folks, and almost every household had a Sears credit card. We had two delivery methods, in store pick up and home delivery. Some items could not be ordered to the store - remember Sears was a combination of Fust, Landi, Carrefour, and LeClerc, but without food; so dry goods, hardware, furniture, clothing, washers, electronics, and so on - tractors, livestock, and large appliances couldn’t be delivered to the store via catalog, but if you pissed me off, you might potentially get a tractor delivered to your house on a Saturday morning (we could set the delivery times for some items) or a box of bees to figure out how to return.
Accidents happened frequently and the early computers glitched occasionally, telephone numbers were mistyped, merging accounts and other wonkiness, and it was easy to hide who made the orders in the computer, and impossible to trace if done on an in store phone. The older folks taught me how, when a bully from my school showed up one day, and gave me some sh!t, and as an employee I had to take it... one of the older guys grabbed the paperwork from me, and ordered their house about twenty huge buckets (five gallon - twenty or so liter) of paint and then told me, it’s not much, but revenge can be fun, they’ll have to carry those buckets to the store to get the refund. I bet the bully will have to help his dad bring them.
A week or so later, I arrived for my shift, and noticed a mountain of paint cans in the returns bay.
Thanks for reminding me.
The main reason I shop in France is 1) the opening hours to 9pm every night, and Sunday morning hours, and 2) it is the easiest to bike to for me.
I could really care less about the cost, unless it gets to say 2x more expensive, which I doubt, and most of the other reasons others mentioned in the thread.
Popped into the Intermarche on Sunday morning. It was immaculate, huge, cheerful, and depopulated. The cheese counter was the size of a football pitch. Lamb kidneys, poulet de Bresse with blue legs, saucissons and pates galore! I could have spent all day in there. Grabbed a large chunk of Comte for 17 euro/kg. We used to make a monthly pilgrimage when we lived in the western cantons.