Prices Comparison - USA - Europe

[RogerS]

As others have said, it depends.

Most stuff that we are interested in is made in China. So these days a lot of Bosch stuff is made in China. The prices charged in individual countries will be what the market will bear.

Stuff made in the US and imported to the EU will have several duties/taxes applied.

Customs Tax ...set by each individual country
VAT ...set by each individual country
Import Duty....set by the EU
Handling rip-off (sorry, charge) ,.usually levied by whichever carrier or handling agency is collecting the three items above.

Differential pricing even occurs on home produced goods such as food. You can go into a food production line factory and see several different colour coded lines...one per supermarket chain. All producing, essentially, the same item...but with a slightly different mix of ingredients dependent on the supermarket's specification.

 

[Lons]

Having travelled to the US, Canada and Oz several times in the last few years I'm appalled at the difference in prices, especially when UK branded tools and fixings are considerably lower, even after sales tax than in the UK. My wife won't go into any of the stores because she's fed up of hearing my ranting complaints.
Asda in the UK sell some of the same stuff as Walmart as the are the same group and I seriously doubt there is any difference in the manufacturing process having bought identical branded clothing from both. Wrangler and Levi jeans for example were only £10 in the US and a few months ago I bought 5 pairs at £12.40 in Canada, try comparing the same jeans here! :roll: I also found that Americans are very quick to complain if something isn't as it should be and the big stores certainly seem to have a no quibble returns policy which is also true here of course.

Petrol in Canada this summer was less in CAD than the UK price in GDP btw which was great on holiday but bloody annoying when I got back.

As an aside, I started my working life as a rep for RHM Foods based at the Bero flour works in Newcastle, a very long time ago and we also produced flour for own brand labels, the composition was slightly different to Bero but identical to our McDougalls and significantly cheaper.

The UK market has for a long time been very brand conscious, just look at the car market and prices are set accordingly!

Bob

 

[RogerS]

I wonder what the relative overheads are between, say, the UK and the US ? That might explain the difference.

 

[Lons]

I wonder what the relative overheads are between, say, the UK and the US ? That might explain the difference.

I guess US sales tax v Uk VAT comes into it as well but interestingly, which magazine looked at electronic product comparisons this summer when the £ was high against the $ and came to the conclusion that the differences were down to manufacturer pricing for specific markets.
An example of that which can't be down to overheads are digital products like MS Office Pro which was £154 more expensive in the UK and Adobe Creative Cloud ( 12 month subscription ) at £208 more. These included taxes and as they are delivered digitally there are no transport costs.

As far as I know, average salary and more importantly take home pay is higher in the USA than the UK if you earn more than around £15k pa and that takes into account taxes and social security ( our N.I. ) as well as medical insurance so in theory at least more spending power though if poor in the US then pretty destitute I think.

My sceptical view is that the UK has always been viewed as easy money.

Bob

 

[RogerS]

Business rates ?

Corporation tax ?

Pension costs ?

Building rental costs ?

There's a whole slew of costs..not just staff costs.

 

[Lons]

Business rates ?

Corporation tax ?

Pension costs ?

Building rental costs ?

There's a whole slew of costs..not just staff costs.

Yeah, I hadn't missed those Roger there are of course many differences but in the case of the Microsoft and Adobe Systems I gave as examples the costs are the same whether they sell to the US or the UK as the products are delivered in digital form so why are they so much more expensive? 40% more for MS and more than 60% for the Adobe product which is only a subscription. The only answer to those surely is they price what they believe the market will take and nothing to do with operating costs, no wonder piracy is rife.

Again, as most of the other products are produced in Asia the cost of manufacture is the same so it's then down to transport and and import taxes etc. so it's very difficult to accept some of the huge price differences on some products as just differences in operating costs and exchange rates and I remain sceptical. Corporation tax is levied only on profit and in the USA it's double the UK rate which is why companies are flooding into the UK, Switzerland and other "tax havens" to reduce that particular bill as it's payable on the location of the company not where profit is generated, so... 39% corporation tax in the US is applied to a US company whether the goods are sold in the US or anywhere else so shouldn't affect the price at all.

Nothing wrong of course with any company pitching it's pricing at a specific market, profit isn't a dirty word and has happened since time began,it happens whether it's Poundland or Harrods and all of us have seen the differences in tools and machines between different retailers and of course we vote with our feet. The only thing that's changed is that these days is we have the opportunity to buy abroad in person and on line and price comparison these days is very easy.

Anyway, it's Sunday morning, I'm off soon for a game of golf and then cut the grass for hopefully the last time so in a good mood and not going to get irritated thinking about it any more :lol:

cheers
Bob

PS Did you get the back end of that storm Roger? Looked a pretty bad forecast for the north west. We took the new caravan for a few days to Whitby recently and the winds a week past Wednesday were extreme, didn't help that the site was on a cliff top. #-o

 

[RogerS]

......
PS Did you get the back end of that storm Roger? Looked a pretty bad forecast for the north west. We took the new caravan for a few days to Whitby recently and the winds a week past Wednesday were extreme, didn't help that the site was on a cliff top. #-o

Good question, Bob. But as you know, the weather here is so vile all the time, it's hard to say if we did !

Enjoy your round of golf.