LONDON, July 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --
British Prices Increase by Only 4%
In preparation for the back-to-school season, Twenga, the open shopping platform with the biggest choice online, compared as every year the price of 169,229 school supplies used by pupils in the UK, in Germany and in France.
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The study is based on a basket containing 16 standard school supplies such as pencils, erasers, notebooks etc. Whereas the prices have been continually rising in the last few years, the results revealed that the costs of school supplies in the UK continue to level off in 2012. The price of a bargain basket of back to school products almost remained the same: £96 in 2011, £98 this year. The standard price basket slightly increased by 4% (from £199 to £208). The significant gap between bargain prices and standard prices shows that British consumers should look closely for the best deal and compare prices.
Compared to its European neighbours, the UK is the only country who managed to keep its school supplies prices stable in 2012. Indeed, Twenga's analysis revealed a price increase in Germany, where the price of a bargain basket increased by 26% and the standard basket by 10%. The school supplies costs in France appear similar: a dramatic rise of 31% for the bargain basket and 24,5% for a standard basket. However, despite of this increase, French school supplies are still the cheapest in Europe.
Methodology
Twenga put together a shopping basket of back to school equipment, choosing 16 products (see list below) used by students and marketed simultaneously across the UK, France and Germany.
In June 2012, Twenga considered 169,229 product prices from online shops in the UK, in France and in Germany.
To calculate the 'regular price' shown in its study, Twenga added up the median price for each item. The 'bargain price' represents the price from the bottom quartile for each price (the lower price range) for each product. Twenga uses the median price to avoid the data becoming biased by extreme cases.
The list of school products used for the study includes: ballpoint pens, fountain pens, pencils, pencil erasers, binders, pen eraser rewriters, drawing compasses, A4 notebooks, pencil cases, school bags, glue sticks, academic diaries, children's scissors, scientific calculators, flat rulers, set squares.
About Twenga
Twenga is the open shopping platform with the biggest choice online.
Thanks to its proprietary technology, Twenga gathers on its websites all retailers, products and prices it finds on the Web.
Founded in 2006 by Bastien Duclaux and Cedric Anes, Twenga runs 15 sites, displaying 400 million offerings from more than 200,000 online shops. Twenga's sites received 45 million visits in November 2010. In the same year, Twenga won the Red Herring 100 Global Award, the Young Technology Leader Award and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Company of the Future Category.
Website: http://www.twenga.co.uk/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/#!/TwengaUK
Twitter: http://twitter.com/twenga_uk/
For more information please contact:
Twenga
Herbert Knibiehly, Marketing Director
Phone: 0033-1-55-34-97-58
press@twenga.com
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