Why Are Prices Higher In Europe Than In The U.S. and Canada?

[bosnian_guy]

Hey guys I was just having this conversation with some of my friends here in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we were wondering why do we have to pay more for electronics than Canada and U.S. . For example: An Apple iPad 16 GB (non 4G) in my country costs 820 $ American dollars, but in the U.S. for the same money you can buy your self a 128 GB (non 4G) iPad. We here buy all of our phones unlocked because if you sign a deal with one of our mayor carriers (BH Telecom, mTel or HT Eronet) you end up paying double the price of an unlocked phone (and if you buy a Nexus with them you will never get an update). Price of an Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 is 855 $ American dollars (For a 16GB model). And if you want to buy a high end laptop or a high end PC you basically have to lend some money from the bank. I bought in November 2011 a HP ProBook 4530s core i3 and paid 860 $ American dollars. I was wondering what do you think about all this. Any thoughts are welcome.

[Elbstrand]

Most likely because your government, just like mine (Germany) takes a huge chunk of taxes...

[ANIMAL_ORIGIN]

Shipping and taxes. 

[Anubikai]

Value added TAX my man.....really not sure if its across Europe but in the UK a £1000 pound PC in America will be £1200 here in the UK.....if your lucky...also due to the lack of computer part suppliers(there's only 3 main ones i think) they usually have higher prices(not including vat) which means that £1000 PC in America would most likely ed up being £1400 -1500 by the time the vat is added. Tax sucks i know =(

 

-Anubikai

[bosnian_guy]

At least you have Amazon.

[sonarctica]

$2000 in US will be $4500 in Finland.

[bosnian_guy]

$2000 in US will be $4500 in Finland.

You are kidding right?? Are they f**** crazy?

[arodrake]

You can try importing it and avoid the taxes, but if you get caught you have to pay so much more (shipping + VAT tax + courier cost)... :x

[bosnian_guy]

And I know this has nothing to do with prices of stuff but I really don't get some companies. If they release something in the U.S. why don't they make it world wide. For example some online games and things like that. Does it really matter to them if I am in Africa or in America?

[bosnian_guy]

You can try importing it and avoid the taxes, but if you get caught you have to pay so much more (shipping + VAT tax + courier cost)... :x

My friend tried to import a MacBook Pro 15 inch with Retina Display and he got caught so he ended up paying 8200 $ American dollars for a f** laptop

[Alex Dimitri]

Bosnia like many other country`s from Balcans get IT stuff from 4th - 5th hand (everyone takes cut) add ridiculous tax and customs and you get answer !

I`m in Serbia and it`s same crap.....plus you can`t find the best stuff (more exotic) even if you payed in real gold !

And ordering from net is out of the question since they use "eye method" to apply customs and tax fees......plus some things tend to dissapear into the thin air !

[wkronbaek]

At least the scandinavian has ridicoulous wages to make up for their ridicoulous taxes. Lol, but yeah it's mainly taxes. And the ipad thing is just apple being kinda random.

[bosnian_guy]

I have a friend in Finland and she claims that the prices are not that high. She bought a Canon EOS 1100D (as you American folks know it Rebel T3) and paid 300 € for it. That's about 410$ American dollars. In my country that thing without a lens is 550$ American dollars (unless if you get it on a super cheap price for holidays and stuff like that)

[alpenwasser]

It's not just shipping and taxes. In Switzerland we have 8% VAT, and our prices are

often higher by quite a bit more than that. Also, keep in mind that if you ship large masses of

stuff shipping costs really won't be very significant anymore (I've worked in logistics, and

my brother still does).

As usual, there's probably no single dominant factor for this, but a cumulative effect of

several, taxes and shipping being two of them. Another one, as mentioned, is that often the

retail chain is longer, meaning you have more people taking their cut. And to a certain

degree I also very much believe that it's just the manufacturers and retailers seeing how

much they can get away with. There's lots of stuff being sold here in Switzerland for much

higher prices than right across the border in Germany, for example, and it has nothing to

do with taxes or shipping, it's simply that companies can get away with higher prices here

than they can in Germany (at least for some stuff).

A great example of this is furniture and cars. Prices in Switzerland are ridiculously

inflated when it comes to that stuff (as in more than twice as expensive in some cases, or

even higher), which is why when we had to get new furniture due to my parents' divorce we (ok,

my dad ;)) bought almost all of it at German retailers. Even with VAT and shipping (which you

still have to pay if you import it into Switzerland of course) it's still much cheaper. And

that has nothing to do with taxes, it's simply retailers asking for higher prices because

they can get away with it. For some things, this tendency is being reversed a bit and Swiss

retailers are starting to feel the price pressure, but we're only at the very early stages

of this.

Note: I'm aware that Switzerland has quite a high median income and that naturally our prices

will and maybe even should reflect that to some degree. But for lots of stuff around here

prices are much more inflated than our salaries when comparing them to other countries, it's

nowhere even close to being proportional.

[GoodBytes]

Taxes taxes and taxes, and government red tape.

 

That aside, another big factor, is market prices... in other words, People in Country 'A', might see little value in a product and only willing to pay a small price, or wages are low, or economy isn't great, which limits buying power of people within that country. A reverse example: If you have a chocolate bar, and it cost 0.10$ to make, but people are willing to pay 10$ for. Then why would another candy bar manufacture sell it less, when charging 10$ equally for their flavor will result in high sales in any case. So now all chocolate bars in that country is 10$.

[bosnian_guy]

In my country (Bosnia and Herzegovina) wages are very poor (accept doctors, and directors and stuff like that). My mum is a doctor and my father is a director of a insurance company, so their wages are not so low. But other people are not so lucky to have that kind of jobs because of the economy state we are in. For Gods sake we can't even get JMBG's for our children (a special number of each and every citizen in the country). Without it you can't make a passport. Now all that my country is talking about is that.

[Denned]

A good example is the xbox / ps4 prices

399$ for the ps4 becomes 650$

While the 499$ xbox is 700$

Those are the suggested retail prices in scandinavia

[JordanMac]

import tax, VAT and shipping. it all adds up.

[Guest]

US vs AUS

 

:(

 

All comes down to shipping, tax, economies and ultimately because they can get away with it - it's up to them and unless people boycott the manufacturer, nothing changes.

[sonarctica]

I have a friend in Finland and she claims that the prices are not that high. She bought a Canon EOS 1100D (as you American folks know it Rebel T3) and paid 300 € for it. That's about 410$ American dollars. In my country that thing without a lens is 550$ American dollars (unless if you get it on a super cheap price for holidays and stuff like that)

 

That's different, lets look at cars, a Bentley Continental GT, £100k car in UK will cost £500k in Finland (also 5 years older than the UK one).

 

I find it funny how Australians complain that their prices are high, but I've yet to see anything that's more expensive than in Finland. Anyone wanna do the whole "challenge accepted" thing?

[Daban]

1 USD = 0.745 Euro = 6.396 SEK (Swedish currency)    1 Eur = 8.57 SEK

 

Yet in electronics it seems like 1 USD = 1 EUR = 10 SEK, at least with newer products :(

The best examples are in games, new tripple A games cost 600-700 SEK (ABOUT 100 DOLLARS!) and americans complain if the same game costs more than 60 dollars...

On Amazon a GTX 670 costs 365 dollars which equals to about ~2500 SEK, but the cheapest you can buy a 670 for in Sweden is 3100 :/

 

 

(Last of us on Amazon for 60 dollars http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Us-Playstation-3/dp/B007CM0K86/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371648793&sr=8-1&keywords=last+of+us)
(Last of us in Sweden for 600 SEK http://cdon.se/spel/the_last_of_us-17477084)

(Asus GTX 670 2GB in Sweden: http://www.netonnet.se/art/dator/komponenter/grafikkort/nvidia-pci-e/asus-gtx6702gbpci-e/180403.7063/)

(Asus GTX 670 2GB on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-GeForce-GTX-670-DC2-2GD5-GTX670-DC2-2GD5/dp/B0081IFO2C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371648553&sr=8-1&keywords=ASUS+GeForce+GTX670)

[Minjon]

Hey guys I was just having this conversation with some of my friends here in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we were wondering why do we have to pay more for electronics than Canada and U.S. . For example: An Apple iPad 16 GB (non 4G) in my country costs 820 $ American dollars, but in the U.S. for the same money you can buy your self a 128 GB (non 4G) iPad. We here buy all of our phones unlocked because if you sign a deal with one of our mayor carriers (BH Telecom, mTel or HT Eronet) you end up paying double the price of an unlocked phone (and if you buy a Nexus with them you will never get an update). Price of an Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 is 855 $ American dollars (For a 16GB model). And if you want to buy a high end laptop or a high end PC you basically have to lend some money from the bank. I bought in November 2011 a HP ProBook 4530s core i3 and paid 860 $ American dollars. I was wondering what do you think about all this. Any thoughts are welcome.

Just buy components from Serbia..... eu prices.

[BirdyTheMighty]

no suprize there we have to pay  like duoble becasue of our high tax

eg

 PS4 = $399 in USA

ps4 = $549 at eb $548 at Jbhifi in AU

[ACK]

I believe the main factor is VAT. The fact that VAT is added after all the other fees makes the prices skyrocket. Especially when you have VAT that is 23% of the price, meaning that almost 1/4 of the money you pay goes directly to your government without even counting other taxes and duties, in my opinion this is ridiculous.

[Vitalius]

This is why I don't like socialism in general. That's what I blame the high taxes on honestly.

I'd rather be smart and handle my own money than let the government invest it for me. :|

But I won't get into that very much as I only know about it in the US. Not sure how it all works in the EU and the rest of the world.