Have you ever been disappointed by shops in another country closing at an earlier time than you thought? Or have you perhaps been pleasantly surprised by sales being held at a different time than you expected? In order to provide consumers with some practical information about shopping in different Member States, the UK European Consumer Centre has recently started publishing 'EU shopping guides'. These leaflets provide details about, for example, pricing, tax, opening hours and banking services in EU Member States. The first guide concerned the UK itself and was published at the occasion of the Olympic Games of this year. Shopping guides for other EU countries are being made available on the UK ECC's website as they appear.
