Feeling like a second class customer...

[xGGAx]

Specially if you live outside the US or EU. Let me explain...

 

I recently built the computer in my signature, while shopping around I noticed a couple of things:
1) Prices are ridiculously high (not really a surprise but still)
2) Good hardware is somewhat hard to come by (for instance, noctua fans, top tier video cards, phanteks cases, fractal design, etc)

 

I'm in Mexico city, and you would think that being in the biggest city in the country (world?) would make it simple to find decent hardware. That's not the case.

Most stores  carry a few brands of hardware at a time. A decent Store would sell, corsair, nzxt, asus, gigabyte, but not MSI, EVGA (EVGA is like the unicorn of pc hardware around here), antec and so on.

Retailers blame (somewhat) hardware companies for not making distribution agreements with them. Which brings us to the possible reason for this: price.

 

I realize that prices are subject to customs, shipping and the exchange rate. However, some pieces of hardware reach 2x or 3x the retail price of the US.  A bronze certified PSU like mine goes for $50 USD, a gold certified of the same wattage is $100 and a platinum certified is $200.  So basically 2x the price of last tier. 
Graphics cards follow the same trend, the cheapest gtx 1080 available goes for $763 USD while newegg has it for $649. 

 

 Hardware companies dont care/ want to sell their products around here because of costs or because they think no one would buy them. Not even Amazon Mexico offers those products.

I lived in the US  for a few years so I think I was spoiled by newegg and Frys. Even so, I wish we had a better distribution system, a better customer support and prices.

I am willing to pay a little more for a decent card or case, but not over $100 or anything ridiculous like that.

Opinions?

[Bouzoo]

Being in the EU doesn't mean anything. If nothing, most of the times we get the shorter end of the stick. Looking at the GTX 1080, you can't get it below $840 here, and that's if you're lucky. Same for all electronics. And I don't even want to mention VAT.

It's the same in more advanced EU countries. 

 

If you look at my rig, I paid ~$1240 for it 2 years ago. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, Bouzoo said:

Being in the EU doesn't mean anything. If nothing, most of the times we get the shorter end of the stick. Looking at the GTX 1080, you can't get it below $840, and that's if you're lucky. Same for all electronics. And I don't even want to mention VAT.

It's the same in more advanced EU countries. 

It depends really. You can get a 1080 in Germany for the equivalent of around u$s 700 or so.

 

Coming back to OP's point, it typically help having limited regulatory wedges and a sizable market in terms of demand around you. Spain is overall cheaper than Germany, but most of the times you find cheaper hardware in Germany (not always, though, but mostly). I'm guessing that, regardless the demand per capita, the total demand in DF can't be too low, so import fees and intermediary margins can be more of an issue (countries like Argentina have additional taxes on electronics to "foster domestic production", which doesn't really happen anyway, I don't know what's the situation in Mexico with NAFTA etc.)

[Bouzoo]

1 minute ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

snip

Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely places in EU that are cheaper sometimes, but usually they are more expensive on average, at least in my experience. I've looked only in shops from about 10-15 EU different countries though. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, Bouzoo said:

Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely places in EU that are cheaper sometimes, but usually they are more expensive on average, at least in my experience. I've looked only in shops from about 10-15 EU different countries though. 

Absolutely. I haven't made a transatlantic comparison in a while, but it used to be the case that a $1000 in the US would be €1000 in the EU, with the exchange rate at €1=$1.2-1.3, so you could easily save 20% and more by buying in the US, if you had the chance.

Now the euro is closer to the USD, but I don't know what happened with relative prices.

[Curufinwe_wins]

In fairness.... In the vast majority of the US (microcenter being like the only exception, and even then their selection isn't good) it is damn near impossible to find decent hardware at anything approaching reasonable prices if you DON'T use online retailers...

 

For crying out loud the tech store nearest me asks 70 USD for a 1TB hard drive, and 30 dollars for a 4 ft hdmi cable...

[mrchow19910319]

GTX1080 here in China. 

5200 Chinese currency is roughly 780 us dollar. 

What you gonna do? 

 

 

[killcomic]

4 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

GTX1080 here in China. 

5200 Chinese currency is roughly 780 us dollar. 

What you gonna do? 

And considering that EVERYTHING gets made in China, what's their excuse?!
 

[mrchow19910319]

4 hours ago, killcomic said:

And considering that EVERYTHING gets made in China, what's their excuse?!
 

Taxation and retailers margin. I guess. 

[spellmanuk]

gtx 1080 founders edition on amazon.co.uk £602 ($790) and an EVGA SC 1080 is £690 ($900) so not much better here in the uk

 

Spoiler

 

[The Falcon]

I feel the pain of OP. I live in South Africa and we suffer from exactly the same issue here. Limited product selection, incredibly hiked prices on computer parts, phones etc. It is incredibly annoying as we have a large PC and gaming industry here but have to deal with incredibly shitty pricing on the products. 

A lot of people resort to waiting for friends to go to the USA and then give them a shopping list of products to bring back.