I have just purchased some underwear at Marks and Spencer in Sliema at a cost of €19.50.

The UK price had been removed from the pack and replaced with the Maltese price. I found the exact same item on their UK website at a price of £10 which is €12.

This is a mark up of 62.5 per cent over the UK retail price!

Similar outrageous mark-ups are applied to the other stock in the Maltese branches of M&S.

It is not possible to order direct from the UK because M&S will not post to Maltese addresses presumably to protect their franchisees.

It is often said that the high prices in Malta are due to the cost of shipping.

I suppose that M&S sends these items of clothing in a 40-foot long container which would be large enough to deliver enough clothing to fill a large part of the Sliema shop.

I suspect that the cost of shipping in that container might be £10,000 or €12,000 which probably equates to about 20c or 30c per pack of three underpants.

Is this reasonable in the so-called Common Market?

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