Massive price disparity between US and UK models of HP laptops

[coolcommando54]

I've been looking around for a laptop for uni, and I noticed that specifically the HP ENVY x360 has an enormous price difference if you're buying in the US or UK. For example, one with windows 10 home, ryzen 7 4700u, 16gb ram, 15.6" display etc identical spec costs $857 and the same in the UK costs £1,000. That's a £322 or $406 difference which is more than significant. It's probably much cheaper to arrange a friend over here to buy it on my behalf and send it to me. What gives? Why is there such a huge difference? What am I missing?

[Eighjan]

8 minutes ago, coolcommando54 said:

I've been looking around for a laptop for uni, and I noticed that specifically the HP ENVY x360 has an enormous price difference if you're buying in the US or UK. For example, one with windows 10 home, ryzen 7 4700u, 16gb ram, 15.6" display etc identical spec costs $857 and the same in the UK costs £1,000. That's a £322 or $406 difference which is more than significant. It's probably much cheaper to arrange a friend over here to buy it on my behalf and send it to me. What gives? Why is there such a huge difference? What am I missing?

US market is significantly bigger than ours... and they'll shift a lot more units.

US pricing doesn't 'have to' add sales tax to the advertised pricing, either... UK has to show incl. VAT prices.

[Bombastinator]

37 minutes ago, coolcommando54 said:

I've been looking around for a laptop for uni, and I noticed that specifically the HP ENVY x360 has an enormous price difference if you're buying in the US or UK. For example, one with windows 10 home, ryzen 7 4700u, 16gb ram, 15.6" display etc identical spec costs $857 and the same in the UK costs £1,000. That's a £322 or $406 difference which is more than significant. It's probably much cheaper to arrange a friend over here to buy it on my behalf and send it to me. What gives? Why is there such a huge difference? What am I missing?

One can always check exchange rate + final shipped cost (which will include various stuff besides sales tax) and if it’s cheaper ship it.  Used to be a big thing in both directions.  Less common now with companies being more up to date.

 

Used to be companies that specialized in it still are for several countries.  Might be a UK one around.   Was big for ejuice.  The hard to find one is called an aggregator that makes shipping cheaper by packing and shipping whole containers.

[Dravinian]

54 minutes ago, Eighjan said:

US market is significantly bigger than ours... and they'll shift a lot more units.

This is not the reason.  The EU has similar buying power to the US - bear in mind the EU as a whole has about 150m more people living in it than the US.  The difficulty in shipping from one European Country to another is non-existent and has been for decades - it would be no different to shipping across States in the US (which might actually be more difficult due to the way the US arranges itself).

 

To the OP, it is not just laptops, it is RAM, hard drives everything PC related is charged extra in the UK as compared to the US.

 

I wrote a review on Amazon asking why, and Amazon refused to allow it to be published.

 

20% VAT, I don't think that cuts it as $857 is about £678, now even adding 20% to that price, you are still only at £815.  So where is the other £190 going?

[Eighjan]

4 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

This is not the reason.  The EU has similar buying power to the US - bear in mind the EU as a whole has about 150m more people living in it than the US.  The difficulty in shipping from one European Country to another is non-existent and has been for decades - it would be no different to shipping across States in the US (which might actually be more difficult due to the way the US arranges itself).

 

To the OP, it is not just laptops, it is RAM, hard drives everything PC related is charged extra in the UK as compared to the US.

 

I wrote a review on Amazon asking why, and Amazon refused to allow it to be published.

The UK won't BE in the EU for much longer... so that market share may not be relevant, much longer.

4 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

20% VAT, I don't think that cuts it as $857 is about £678, now even adding 20% to that price, you are still only at £815.  So where is the other £190 going?

Import duty, from the country of manufacture, mebbe...?  If that's the US (I'm sure HP is an American company) they don't have to pay it.

[Dravinian]

Just now, Eighjan said:

The UK won't BE in the EU for much longer... so that market share may not be relevant, much longer.

Import duty, from the country of manufacture, mebbe...?  If that's the US (I'm sure HP is an American company) they don't have to pay it.

I don't think we are in the EU now to be honest - I thought we left in Oct but there are transition agreements in place for the time being. 

 

Honestly, I do not know what the situation is regarding the importation of goods to the UK from outside of the EU...given the UK is no longer a part of any agreements that exist between the EU and any other countries.

 

With Covid everything sort of fell off to one side, and I don't think anyone has a clue what is going on right now.

 

Could be importation, but it is a bit of a chunk of change for importation tax - about 25% import tax and 20% VAT just to get to the American price pre-tax.  Seems a bit steep to be honest.

[Eighjan]

1 minute ago, Dravinian said:

I don't think we are in the EU now to be honest - I thought we left in Oct but there are transition agreements in place for the time being. 

 

Honestly, I do not know what the situation is regarding the importation of goods to the UK from outside of the EU...given the UK is no longer a part of any agreements that exist between the EU and any other countries.

 

With Covid everything sort of fell off to one side, and I don't think anyone has a clue what is going on right now.

 

Could be importation, but it is a bit of a chunk of change for importation tax - about 25% import tax and 20% VAT just to get to the American price pre-tax.  Seems a bit steep to be honest.

As someone who worked in retail for ~20yrs, I know there is always disparity in markets... and the US will shift millions of units to the EU/UK's 100's of thousands.

The US only need to be twice the total market of the EU/UK to get much more favourable 'bulk discount pricing'.

[Dravinian]

5 minutes ago, Eighjan said:

As someone who worked in retail for ~20yrs, I know there is always disparity in markets... and the US will shift millions of units to the EU/UK's 100's of thousands.

The US only need to be twice the total market of the EU/UK to get much more favourable 'bulk discount pricing'.

Given the populations and the generally speaking equality of disposable income across the major countries, and the population of the US.  I just don't see that the US would be buying more products than the EU.

 

Let me go investigate and see if I can dig up any numbers, I could be entirely wrong.

[Dravinian]

Ok the data does tend to cover Europe, Middle East and Africa.  Couldn't find anything that breaks it down any further for country/region.

 

However, it did seem to show that the US had about 15m units, EMEA 21m units and Asia/Pacific 22m - when dealing with Desktop PCs and Laptops.  Of course, outside of components, but does seem to indicate 3 generally equally sized markets.

[LogicalDrm]

The tax does one part. The other is that sometimes manufacturers, and software/game devs, use direct pricing instead of currency/market adjusted. It seems to be that in here. Where the price is same if both are sold before tax (and no currency conversion taking place at any point). This is something Steam and Origin have done for awhile. They don't really get called out on it very often. Buyers are sheep after all.

 

Because, $857USD = £800GBP+20% VAT. Makes perfect sense.

[coolcommando54]

22 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

The tax does one part. The other is that sometimes manufacturers, and software/game devs, use direct pricing instead of currency/market adjusted. It seems to be that in here. Where the price is same if both are sold before tax (and no currency conversion taking place at any point). This is something Steam and Origin have done for awhile. They don't really get called out on it very often. Buyers are sheep after all.

 

Because, $857USD = £800GBP+20% VAT. Makes perfect sense.

But $857 is ~£677, and 677 with 20% tax is £812. The laptop here is £1000, not £800

[LogicalDrm]

2 minutes ago, coolcommando54 said:

But $857 is ~£677, and 677 with 20% tax is £812. The laptop here is £1000, not £800

Lets say MSRP is $800. They will use that same number, no currency conversion. So it becomes £800 in UK. And that gets added tax. That would explain why the difference, after currency conversion, is so drastic. Like said, not the first time this tactic is used. For example in Steam, AAA game is $60USD. Same game is sold in EU for €60. In UK for £60. In Australia for $60AUD. You get my point?

[coolcommando54]

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

Lets say MSRP is $800. They will use that same number, no currency conversion. So it becomes £800 in UK. And that gets added tax. That would explain why the difference, after currency conversion, is so drastic. Like said, not the first time this tactic is used. For example in Steam, AAA game is $60USD. Same game is sold in EU for €60. In UK for £60. In Australia for $60AUD. You get my point?

Ah ok gotcha. I misread the wording