So what's the UK got to worry about?

No much I would have thought, as long as people buy stuff, they'll be right, hmm, same as us really.

I was just watching the late night news tonight, and there was a piece on the UK market and how the pound was getting ever closers to the value of the Euro - there were slices of old people going on about how they were worried how their pounds would get round, and all sorts.

The problem with a strong currency is that there are always things abroad cheaper, not necessarily better and in a lot of cases definitely not, but cheaper.

The problem here is that, and myself included, is that when we start looking at buying something we look at the general price, then we look for that but cheaper. We research some more and find an alternative that is even cheaper, and we look until we've found the cheapest, forget about any trade off's in terms of quality, availability, convenience (all the things that consumers generally demand in any purchase) - buy it, it sucks, complain to our mates that we should have gone option A, or at the least option B and to stay away from option C because it's junk.

The great thing here, and no doubt somewhere in the UK, is that with our currencies being low it means that locally source goods and services become cheaper as the offshore stuff rises in the price, the void is closed and people get back to looking at what's best value - and start to take into account more different aspects like quality, service, and if I can get it at a reasonable price and can get it today I will.

I especially like it with SMS I must admit - between a local service and an offshore service the price gap is great, the quality isn't there in terms of delivery rate, and to be fair when the services go down they stay down for some time. However, when the local currency falls, at some time it's inevitable that off shore prices will rise and get closer to the local services stealing their one big reason to buy - price.

I can assure you having clients that have come from using cheap services they appreciate where the trades off are, and what their value is - but this isn't to rave on about offshore services, this is a smiley piece.

The Asian markets have known it for years - look at Japan, produce high quality gear at reasonable prices, why? Because not so long ago a single Pound bought lots and lots of Yen, so did an Australian dollar, they still do, but not as much as they did.

Think of it this way, when the dollar fell the price of milk didn't double - petrol didn't stay the same as the dollar fell with the cost of oil. Sure, there maybe slight rises where we buy in parts from overseas to produce goods here, but it's small rise and not a steep step.

So to the Brits who never thought they'd see the day, and are worried about it - don't be, at the end of the day you'll end up buying more local stuff, grow the economy and the Pound, wish you hadn't and be back where you were not that long ago.

Cheers and be safe,
C