The UK has traditionally not been the cheapest place to shop. Property, land, perfume cars and a host of other products have always been more expensive than most other European countries and certainly the USA. Then if you look at cigarettes, alcohol and petrol, the UK really does get the vote for being expensive.

For years now many Brits, jump on the ferry to France to take advantage of the cheaper beer, wine and cigarettes or make sure they take advantage of their holidays by bringing back whatever they can fit into their suitcases and everything else.

As far as booze, cigarettes and petrol is concerned things have not changed much because of the huge taxes, levied by the government but as far as other goods are concerned, things appear to have changed.

We travel quite bit and last year we visited Florida again and during the holiday we did our normal trek to the discount fashion and footwear malls. For the first time we did not see much difference in the prices in Florida compared to the same type of discount shop in the UK, although granted the designs were newer. Another exception seemed to be the companies that still manufactured in the USA rather than Asia.

The biggest difference we saw was recently to a trip to Hong Kong. We had deliberately held off from buying a new SLR digital camera until we had arrived in Hong Kong in anticipation much cheaper prices. As we searched through the electrical shops of Kowloon, it became apparent that not only were the prices not cheaper but in fact considerably more expensive.

In retrospect I suppose we should have been more aware of the reduction of prices within the UK and how the Internet is making us all more aware of where to buy specific products around the world. Take CD