Conclusion
The first conclusion is of practical and of legal nature: It does not make sense to order hardware in a foreign country, or to buy large amounts of hardware when you travel. One the one hand, shipping cost will eat up all cost advantages. On the other hand, you’ll have to pay custom duties or an import turnover tax for many products. The only exception is the purchase of inexpensive products, as consumers in different countries can often buy goods abroad that remain below a certain price level without having to pay duty charges.
Meanwhile, the price differences between different PC products are remarkable. Basic consumer electronics accessories such as a 2-GB SD memory card vary in price around the world by up to 100%, while prices for premium PC components vary by 10-30%. Cost for a Core 2 Duo E6850 processor or a GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card was very much balanced, while the Coolermaster power supply or the Zalman CPU cooler showed large pricing differences. We selected products that are available almost everywhere, and we took the average price of the four cheapest etailers to get a solid number.
We found that France is rather expensive, especially if compared to Germany, which is next door. The United States is at the other end of the pricing spectrum, as most products are less expensive there.
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Hardware manufacturers have a different perception of the major markets, which depends on the
Finding The Worlds Best Hardware Prices: Shop Globally : Read more
I don't pretend to understand how this money market thing works exactly but to go on net prices totally invalidates the whole article. People want to know what its going to cost them in real money terms the actual cost.
Joe public couldn't care less about VAT refunds that EU business gets.
All i know is that if a card costs $500 it shouldn't cost me £350 no where near!
Mactronix
I live in the channel Islands, so I get VAT off
I notice they sourced the figures for GNI from wikipedia..... also what does NAFTA stand for? (i'm writing comments as i go along btw...
NAFTA is North American Free-Trade Association. Free Trade is good for corporations. It's bad for the smaller shopowner and employee though. Very controversial. The closest we'd get is the EU internal market... if there were no labourv restrictions, tax laws or monetary exchange worries. I think... been a good few years since I studied it.
Pointless review.
At the end of the day, I need to pay VAT and I can't claim it back.
Or he should compare the price in some country in Asia which they don't have sale tax.
I like the article, I just wanted to point out to Mr Schmid that America is just one continent. So Canadians, Peruvians, Argentinians, Equatorians, Cubans, Brazilians, US citizens, Mexicans and all the rest, they all share this fact in the same level, no matter if their country is located in the north, centre or south of the continent. And just to finish, Spanish means someone born (or got a passport from the Spanish authorities) in Spain (South Europe but Europe nonetheless) not anyone that speak Spanish like Mexicans or Peruvians. In the same way nobody would call English to the US citizens because they speak English
This was actually quite an interesting article as it trys to show how much a component is sold in different markets (prior to local government taxes). This is interesting as it show how manufactures percieve the market segment. For example, its interesting to note that with the weak dollar - the UK prices are comparable to the US, but as is typical, once the local taxes are added back on the US always wins.
From a European perspective - next time your thinking of a family holiday, try suggesting Germany and go I.T component shopping.
Who are these German suppliers? Ebuyer in the UK are the best.
A bit out of date on the Credit card info - practically all European retailers take Mastercard and Visa - charge cards such as Amex are less universally accepted.
In the UK specifically remember that retailing makes its money on selling financial services and not goods so pushing high rate loans, insurance and warranties is what the likes of PC World exist for.
Financing deals are usually available but often very expensive. Watch the settlement dates on 0% buy now pay later deals as you won't get a reminder and you have to work out how to pay the 3rd party finance house before the due date to avoid extortionate interest - you can't walk into the shop with cash in hand and pay the loan off. The business model on these deals counts on people mising the end of the 0% period and paying the full interest (sometimes as high as 25-30% APR) on the full amount for the full period.
Never agree to pay payment protection insurance - despite the heavy hints to the contrary the finance deal will not be refused if you don't agree to it. Avoid UK extended warranties like the plague - they are worthless.
I disagree with the article. Prices here in europe use to have the same values in euros as in the example of the eeepc wich costs 399€ here and $399 in the USA (that's a big difference and this is just an example of the usual price translation where 1€=$1). So, yes it's really worth buying in the US if you go there on vacation (not if you order by mail wich will cost you a lot after taxes ).
What a useless article, this is toms hardware.co.UK isnt it? I want to know what i will pay in Sterling, i want to know shipping costs, if the idea of this article is to help me find more favorable prices from around the world then what good is it if it doesn't give a total real-world cost for the consumer? Shopping globally to me means i sit at home in the UK and order from companies in the US or Europe and have their products shipped to me, this article does nothing to help clear up what goods will be cheapest when they arrive at my door and i look at my bank statement.
I live in the uK and know that PCWORLD isnt that cheapest, Ive brought memory from US as its 1/2 the price i would pay in the UK even with POSTAGE, granted that if they are a BRIGHT US sales person they would send it as a GIFT, for TAX Reasons. Maybe if they do SIGN up for a SIT and we send you a FREE GIFT worth the price of your Reg fee.
And you need to include the TAX on these things as TAX in the UK is like 95% of cost of living here, TAX on earning it, Taxed on keeping it in the bank, taxed on spending it. A LOT of people wounder how much of there money is theres and not the GOVERMENTS
To AngelLaHash,
Quite true im in the uk also and while the whole global shoping thing makes a lot of sence when talking about a small buy like RAM. Would you seriously take a chance with hundreds of pounds of top end GPU ?
Im seriously thinking of claiming all my next build back on the ground of it being for business.
Mactronix