But then UK Prices are generally up to 50% higher than US prices.
-Carol Haynes
And the reason for this being?
-urlwolf
Actually it isn't just taxes - usually they are on top of the 30-50% hike.
The main reasons are:
1. Because they can (this applies to MS, Adobe and Corel). Exactly the same argument used for the silly prices of some of the products. I actually asked Adobe and Corel why they charged more in the EU and actually got a response. Both companies said "xxxxx in the UK is a totally separate company responsible for its own pricing policy" .... just a shame that the disc you receive aren't EU specific - we still have to put up with the US inability to spell English!!!
2. Because they think we are stupid ... you go to a page that says $399 and then in the checkout system they ask for your country .... oh look simple sums in the UK it is £399 + VAT (which is another 17.5%) .... of course UK people are too stupid to notice that in 2 clicks the price has gone up by about 40%. Some companies also charge too much for VAT! Different EU companies charge different rates. The UK rate is 17.5% but some companies (not the big ones mentioned above) charge anything up to 27% - which as far as I am concerned is illegal (fraud/deception/greed/lying bastards) and they don't have the right to make a charge to cover their tax collection costs - it is part of their legal responsibility for trading in Europe.
3. Almost all of the special offers on web pages for the big companies apply only to the US and Canada because they force others to use their local company.
Sony does a good one now - if you buy e.g. SoundForge you can get the software as a download product - but they only supply the soundeffects etc. on CD. Guess what - the CD costs nothing but they charge something like $40 to post it to the UK. This is a single CD in a card folder in a bubble bag - so the actually postage cost is probably under $4-5 by AirMail. To add insult to injury when it arrives all you get is a sampler of SFX in their collection and to do anything useful you need to spend more money on SFX compliations and postage. To be fair they inherited this practice from Sonic Foundry but there is no real excuse. They would argue that they post it with 48 hour delivery via FedEx - but they don't give any option - do they really need FedEx to post a CD sampler?
The final reason is that we live in ripoff Britain where everything is high (except salaries) ... I find it really amusing to hear Americans whinging about gas prices - petrol in the UK has been nearly 3x the price of US gas for years ... and then they wonder why UK business collapses in world competition. That's why I now speak to someone in Delhi when I try to call my telephone company (BRITISH Telecom!)
Sorry - this rant could go on for a long time and it would probably become quite political - so I'll shut up now ...
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