How do you avoid the Duty Free shops at International airports?

[simongr]

I take almost the same route initially with an approximate diagonal, but I walk to the left of the wood paneling and through the open ended (watch?) store directly to the escalator and the F/L.

I do pretty much the same unless I can see a clear path through the perfumes.

I personally don't about the DF shops - if that is how they make their money and not put more pressure on actual flight prices - I see that as a good thing.

 

[RooFlyer]

Determinedly avoid DF shops at Aussie airports - due to price and diversion from the main game (lounging, mainly). The more they try to push me into the spending zone, the more determined I am not to buy.

I do buy occasionally at o/s D/F shops - presents for kids mainly who like the 'glamour' of getting something form overseas and 'duty free'.

For a couple of anecdotes about how Airport owners view retail Vs flying, check out posts 4257, 4258 and 4265 on this thread: Ask the Pilot

 

[flying_double]

Like it or not, an airport is a business - it's their job to get you to open your wallet!


RooFlyer, in your work as an investment banker, did your IB ever just advise on the deal and do nothing else? or did the debt guys pitch for refinancings on the back of the advisory relationship? did the equity guys go in and update the client on the market and keep the client up to speed on when might be an opportunistic time to bolster the balance sheet? Its all upselling in one form or another. Core revenue plus ancillaries / flow on revenue equals a healthier bottom line. Exactly what the airport managers are getting paid to do for the owners!!


How long does it really take to walk through the store? One minute? Really not that significant when you're going to sit in the F lounge for the next 3 hours followed by 8-22 hours in a pressurised metal tube.


So to answer the OP's question: I walk, I look, I don't touch, I breathe, I politely say no to the DF people should they offer me something, I breathe again, I get to the end of the snake a minute later, I do a little dance, then I go the lounge. Easy. Some things in life are stressful. Walking through a DF store is not one of them.

 

[JohnK]

I do not mind the duty free shops at airports and usually I am not tempted to purchase anything I do not need unless I see something on special.

Every second trip I purchase tobacco for my father as they only sell these in packets of 5 and the limit on return is 2 packets. Leave the excess with someone in Thailand and bring back next time.

 

[Fifa]

If I'm travelling HLO, I stop for a quick squirt of my fave perfume or one which I have enjoyed on someone else, then I head straight up to the F Lounge .

 

[JessicaTam]

The only thing I don't like about walking through the DF store area, is the shelves seem to be getting closer together to increase the retail space. Less room for me to walk past someone who has chosen to stop and look/buy.

 

[Paddy55]

I put them in the same category as Banner Ads on web sites - I just don't notice them
However, as Mrs Paddy and I were walking along the yellow brick road in SYD last Monday I couldn't help but notice her wandering eyes

 

[Pollywaffle]

The only thing I don't like about walking through the DF store area, is the shelves seem to be getting closer together to increase the retail space. Less room for me to walk past someone who has chosen to stop and look/buy.

I'm glad you wrote this. I thought it was my imagination last time when I felt like my path was blocked by shoppers.

 

[Skyring]

If the route goes through the DF shops, then that's the way it is. I generally don't want anything to take with me - if I do, I've bought if before I've left the realm of free choice and it's in my checked bag - but occasionally on arrival at a destination I'll want a gift for my host, and if the price is right, I'll buy something.

Or electronics. I bought a camera in Heathrow last time through. I assumed it was cheaper than the shops outside the airport, and I needed a camera. And then spent a happy half hour in the lounge putting the thing together, losing the little wrist strap and then cheerfully stuffing all the packaging into a bin.

Sometimes they'll have fancy-schmancy travel gadgets that you don't get anywhere else and while I prefer to buy off the web, it's nice to be able to pick up and play with something before buying.

Places like Hong Kong and Singapore, the shopping can rival the lounges for entertainment. In fact, if there's a good bookstore with a cafe included, the lounge may not win out - some US airports have excellent bookstores. After a while all lounges look the same with the sugary snacks and the plastic coffee, but gimme a thoughtful book range with specials bins and fountain pens and notebooks and comfy chairs and barista coffee and I'm happy as. Buy me a postcard, sit down with a mugalatte, write a bullet-point bulletin and race it home.

Compass Books in SFO is a favorite: "Compass Books is a literary oasis in the midst of cattle car airport chaos," one reviewer notes. I was cheezed off because they weren't open before dawn on my last swing through. Peets Coffee was, and I bought a mug there, had them fill it with coffee and plonked it down on the counter when I showed the AC dragons my 30-day pass. Drinking out of it even as we speak.

But I digress. I'd prefer that the duty freeway be widened and re-routed for the keen "get me to the Flounge in the shortest time" traveller, but that's unlikely to happen so I don't get stressed over it. I largely ignore the advertising for cough I don't need, but I'm getting old and cranky and bald and ugly enough to smile at the fetching young staffers as i go by.

 

[Princess Fiona]

In answer to the OP: I don't ultimately avoid them.
On arrival at SYD I go straight to the lounge through the DFS counters and taking a left through the Tag store (IIRC they had modified this shortcut slightly the last time I was there). When I get bored of the lounge I wander back downstairs. I often use the duty free as an excuse to pick up a new lippy (which in all likelihood is cheaper at my destination)
I do love a browse in the airport shops and nominate LHR T5 and especially T3 and ICN as great window shopping outlets.
T3 contains a Chanel store and the prices are fantastic in comparison to here. The Tiffany store there is also very good.
One of the best things about airport shopping is that the goods aren't usually locked up inside cases so its great fun to try on all the sunnies, bags and scarves and not feel under any great obligation to buy.

 

[Skyring]

One of the best things about airport shopping is that the goods aren't usually locked up inside cases so its great fun to try on all the sunnies, bags and scarves and not feel under any great obligation to buy.

I guess the salesfolk telling you that you look fantastic in said accessories doesn't hurt, neither!

 

[serfty]

Like it or not, an airport is a business - it's their job to get you to open your wallet!
...

Sadly, due the the methods being employed, it's more likely my wallet stays firmly shut - see below.

...

How long does it really take to walk through the store? One minute? Really not that significant when you're going to sit in the F lounge for the next 3 hours followed by 8-22 hours in a pressurised metal tube.
...

In MEL it's added another 90 seconds at a brisk stride for me to reach the same point (near the old QF lounge) that it used to. In the 20 or so time a year I have been departing MEL T2 that's half an hour off my life.

In SYD I used to be able to walk striaght up a set of stairs immediately after the X-Ray/WTMD and find myself at the entrance to the QF Business lounge - now it's ~60 seconds and that's another 20 minutes off my life a year.

...

So to answer the OP's question: I walk, I look, I don't touch, I breathe, I politely say no to the DF people should they offer me something, I breathe again, I get to the end of the snake a minute later, I do a little dance, then I go the lounge. Easy. Some things in life are stressful. Walking through a DF store is not one of them.

Actually I do find being forced to walk through the retail areas somewhat stressful - people wandering around in a seemingly aimless manner - you never know when they are going to step into your path. While certainly not as stressful as other things might be, the knowing that it is deliberate exacerbates it, as well as being basically annoying.

I years gone by I did use duty free at Oz airports as the savings were indeed significant, I would wander from the lounge and it was my choice to enter the retail areas - but not any more. Invariably I can get what I may want for less cost overseas (see the JW index thread), and if not, I simply won't buy on Oz as my mini rebellion to the issues I refer to above. It's my option.

 

[RooFlyer]

<snip>

RooFlyer, in your work as an investment banker, did your IB ever just advise on the deal and do nothing else? or did the debt guys pitch for refinancings on the back of the advisory relationship? did the equity guys go in and update the client on the market and keep the client up to speed on when might be an opportunistic time to bolster the balance sheet? Its all upselling in one form or another. Core revenue plus ancillaries / flow on revenue equals a healthier bottom line. Exactly what the airport managers are getting paid to do for the owners!!
<snip>

My oath they did! Quite unedifying mostly.

I'm not against the explosion of retail at airports per se. I'm with simongr who observed here that if airport owners get significant cash and margin from retail, rather than large increases in general pax fees, then I'm OK (as a non shopper).

But when they start shutting down gates in favour of shops, as jb747 recalled, then it starts getting beyond a joke. It will be the nearer gates of course, forcing a longer walk to the aircraft, past more shops.

 

[RooFlyer]

MEL T2 shortcut?

The last couple of times I have done the MEL T2 D/F 200m avoidance sprint, I've eyed off the doors that coming from immigration are right in front of you on the far wall as you navigate the first D/F shop, before bearing right.

After you have done the loop, and bear right again for the old 'straight' towards the gates, there are another set of double doors to your left.

I'm guessing you could cut straight through; it might only be 5-10m.

Anyone taken a closer look at them and the signage on them? Last time both sets of doors were wide open so I couldn't see any sign, so I was tempted to 'innocently' have a look!

 

[blackcat20]

It's not much different to when they re-did Melbourne Central station so that you were forced to exit via the shopping centre. You used to be able to exit directly from the concourse to the street, now you are forced up an extra escalator, through the central shopping area then out to the street. Annoyed me so much at the time that I started exiting via the other side.

 

[smit0847]

The same way I avoid junk food - just walk straight past them.

What a pointless thread.

How do you avoid walking into parked cars?

 

[Warks]

So it's not just me?

When did SYD INT arrivals change from having to divert to the right to walk through Downtown Duty-Free (the only one in arrivals) to becoming a gauntlet to run? When I arrive back in Australia I'm aiming to get to immigration as quickly as possible. The way I feel then the duty free spruikers are lucky I don't go all Rod Steiger in Flying High (Airplane) on them.

 

[serfty]

...

Anyone taken a closer look at them and the signage on them? Last time both sets of doors were wide open so I couldn't see any sign, so I was tempted to 'innocently' have a look!

I have been eying these doors off since they first forced the loop - can't really see any way to use them.

The same way I avoid junk food - just walk straight past them.

What a pointless thread.

How do you avoid walking into parked cars?

For you it may be pointless, for me it's not - almost cathartic really as I get to express and expand on a gripe I have.

As for alertness, it's at it's height for me at this time, with navigation requiring constant evaluation and extrapolation of people movements in or near your intended path. A parked car would be easy ...

 

[Skyring]

Airports are about making money rather than efficiency nowadays. Oner of the benefits of security isn't that it works, but it slows people down so that their behaviour can be looked at and anyone acting strange identified. They could make you jump through a hoop three times and it would still be effective so long as you took off your belt and shoes.

Slowing passengers down and directing them through shops is how it goes nowadays. Grumbling is about as much as we can do by way of opting out.

I'm just glad they haven't made it mandatory to actually buy something. At least we still have that.

 

[cirqueboy]

Most of the time I try to find the fastest path through to the lounge.

If I'm low on fragrance or need a specific thing (like new power adapters for the Retina Display - &*^% you Apple for changing the plug yet again) I'll stop in. Other wise, ignore and walk straight through!