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Posts: 1,336 | Thanked: 3,932 times | Joined on Jul 2010 @ Brittany, France
#2076
Originally Posted by shaihkritzer View Post
what makes EU customers so special? is it still that ubermensch ideology? price should be same for everyone, just like it works with major manufacturers.

taxes aren't usually processed on online sales, you don't pay chinese taxes while buying stuff on Aliexpress. same here.
Are you serious? It works like that for pretty much all manufacturers. Nothing makes EU customers special, they just happen to live in countries with common commercial agreements. Go in Norway and VAT is different, go in the US and there is no VAT. This reflects on retail prices.

Every time you see a price being exactly the same worldwide, that is because the manufacturer's margin is adjusted up or down to make for the variations in taxes and regulations. More often than not, it is adjusted upwards, meaning the manufacturer takes advantage of lower taxes to get more money from customers despite the same production cost. In many cases, the display price is the same but the currency is not, which means again that not all customers are paying the same, and this is not fair because the actual worth difference is arbitrary, with customers paying more or less depending on their official currency, instead of being set by taxes where they live.

If you are a European citizen and you buy something online out of the UE at the non-UE price, you usually pay less because you save VAT, until your parcel is intercepted at the customs and they ask you to pay what you owe your country. Aliexpress plays this game: they don't charge you at the EU price because VAT is not included in their price, and they know very well that your parcel is not likely to be intercepted at customs. So do you. Your purchase is not properly imported, which is not legal, but you save money and of course, you didn't pay Chinese taxes because you purchase never was subjected to them. F(x)tec is a European company (so far), they sell with VAT included unless you purchase from outside EU, and even in that case there may be other taxes or other costs associated with different logistics.

If F(x)tec sells the Pro1 at different rates in the US and in EU, it is most likely because their margin is fixed, which is as fair as it gets to the customer.

Also, again, $699 US is 636€ at today's rates. It might be 639€ tomorrow, 636€ in a week, or 650€ in a month. As of today, it's a 13€ difference. How close do you want it to be despite currency conversion rates changing every day?

Last edited by Kabouik; 2019-09-01 at 00:33.
 

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