Same Product, Double the Price: What a New Index Reveals About Duty-Free Shopping
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I run Echolution, a travel-retail media and data agency, and we've just launched a live Duty-Free Price Index comparing spirits prices across 15 major hub airports (the world's 10 busiest plus key European travel-retail hubs) normalised into USD/EUR/GBP so the prices are genuinely comparable.
First thing that jumped out: the exact same 1L bottle of Smirnoff Vodka costs $10.10 at Dallas/Fort Worth and $22.07 at Lisbon. That's a 119% difference for an identical product. Across the spirits with enough like-for-like coverage, the average cheapest-to-priciest gap between airports is still 58%.
It's a live, filterable directory. Browse by airport, switch currency, or find the cheapest airport for a specific bottle. We're tracking 20 spirits SKUs right now (whisky, vodka, gin, rum, cognac, Irish cream) and plan to expand into other duty-free categories over time.
Take a look at: www.echolution.com/duty-free-price-index/
We would love to get feedback. Is an index like this needed? Useful? If useful what other areas could be added? Features? We plan to cover beauty, fragrance in the coming months.
I would be interested in the price differential between the duty-free price and what the product is available for in the same city at a regular store.
e.g. I'm unlikely to make a purchasing decision based on if the product is cheaper in a city on the other side of the world, as I usually purchase on the arrival side of the trip. So knowing if the product is cheaper at the supermarket would be of more interest to me.
Hope that feedback helps!
Thanks for the feedback Ian. I think once we add more categories against this pilot in airports. comparing Is Duty Free still good value against the Supermarkets / liquor stores would be good insight.
That's a great point! This is exactly the decision pain point I'm usually thinking through when arriving at a destination city. The price differential is only a massive enough difference for luxury products (like watches/bags/etc) to consider a destination switch but if I'm already in X city, I'd love to know if the sunscreen or liquor is cheaper in town or at the airport.
Really interesting data. Duty-free is often automatically associated with “better value,” but comparisons like this show why travelers should still check prices before buying. It would also be interesting to see how these differences change across product categories, not just airports.
Traditionally Duty free would be 1litre and downtown, supermarkets etc would be 70cl but its not always the case any more. Plus then the local complexity. UK out of the EU for example is cheaper. UK price EU price.
That’s a very good point. Once pack sizes, local taxes and different market rules come into play, “duty-free” becomes much harder to compare at face value. A true like-for-like comparison would make this kind of data even more useful for travellers.
Eamonn! What a no-brainer of an idea. Brilliant. I can tell you how many times I have travelled and though of buying duty free and then wondering if I'm getting a good price or not.
Gee, I hope you do very well out of this.
Please check out my posts.
Regards
Larry
The Travel Planner
Thanks Larry! Really appreciate the encouragement. I’ve had exactly the same thought while travelling — duty free doesn’t always mean the best price. I’ll definitely check out your posts too.
Thanks Larry and Ihsan,
It would be great to see if we could evolve it to inflight. Some of my recent flights onboard pricing was considerably cheaper than in the airport. The issue with inflight in my experience is stock not always being available so if you are flying out and back with the same airline thinking that is a great price I will get it on my return flight and it is not available you run the risk of missing out. Air Asia offer pre ordering inflight which is great.