Prices Comparison - USA - Europe

[woodworkingMK]

Why prices to european brands like Bosch or Bessey are twice as much in Europe, than in US?

Why, 110v is £13 less expensive? http://www.axminster.co.uk/bosch-gss140 ... r-ax964483

The same tool in US is 54$, in UK is 104$, how can that be? And the irony to be bigger, the same tool in Germany is 118$!!

https://www.amazon.com/Bosch-GSS20-40-4 ... b_title_hi

 

[woodworkingMK]

I understand the US is bigger market, but I don't understand prices twice as much and even more. I understand 10-20-30% less expensive, but not 110%!

 

[woodworkingMK]

Another example, Bessey 3/4" pipe clamps:

In US: 14$ https://www.amazon.com/Bessey-BPC-H34-4 ... pipe+clamp

In Germany average price 28$: https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/Of ... essey.html

 

[finneyb]

Possible reasons

1. VAT @ 20% is included in UK price; sales tax will be added later in US its never included in the price
2. Exchange rates - sterling has taken a hammering since Brexit, probably dropping 15-20%. Euro is not that healthy against the dollar
3. UK & Euro dealers overheads. European workers enjoy better working conditions than US workers - eg longer holidays, maternity leave, sick pay, pensions, redundancy etc they all cost money.

Brian

 

[AES]

What finneyb says is all true, no doubt.

BUT it's also a question of manufacturers setting prices at what the market will bear, and that applies to many, many items, not only tools.

Question, why does meat where I live (Switzerland) cost on average 140% more than the next highest charging country (I think it was Sweden)? Same reason.

And many other examples- why do many Swiss residents living near the border (and not so near sometimes) cross into Germany or France to do their weekly food shop? Ditto.

AES

 

[worn thumbs]

American car prices seem also to be much lower than their European equivalents.No doubt a part of it is the grim working conditions and benefits that are normal over there.

 

[deema]

I used to manufacture / sell stuff to Europe and America, running a number of plants for a PLC the quality standard acceptable in the USA is very low compared to Europe. Equally they don’t care about the environment, or safety that much either. Regulations are a lot easier and not as stringent. We used to make US stuff that looked like the European equivalent but was built on different lines to different standards. The morale of the story is you get what you pay for in most cases I believe.

 

[AES]

deema wrote, QUOTE: The morale of the story is you get what you pay for in most cases I believe. UNQUOTE:

True, at least to a certain extent, BUT personally, I think a more accurate quote in these days of multi-national companies would be "You get what we decide you'll get, and pay a price that we decide, based to a large extent on nothing more than the market you're in".

P'raps just me being jaundiced!

AES

 

[morturn]

When buying form America, you may be asked to waver your consumer rights too. This is not legally binding in Europe, but is I when buying form America. People have fallen foul of this, much to their own expense.

 

[woodworkingMK]

I doubt American equivalents are different than Europeans. US is not some third world country, so you can sell third class items. Point is that bessey or bosch both mostly are not produced in Germany but in some Asian country in same factory for Europe and US.

 

[deema]

The benefit and disadvantage of the USA is that it is such a high market. Manufactures can and do justifiably setup separate production lines often in the same factory just for the USA. Varying the glass content in plastics, the amount of regrind allowed in plastics versus VO rating for fire resistance, the number and the thickness of wire stands, the paint specification where Europe doesn’t accept rust.....I could go on but all of these add up to significant differences. When you value engineer a product for a mass market you look very carefully at the legislation and standards that you need to comply with. You don’t add any extra features that aren’t required. The end product can and is intended to look like a homogeneous product, but in reality they can be radically different.

When I first started out as a young engineer I was asked to design a product for a large American car company, the spec was must last more than 30K miles and must not last more than 60K miles! This was a number of years ago and I though all of that stupidity had gone away......in recent times I was producing parts for a large American supermarket chain. What they wanted was a consumer product that looked good, packaging was very important, functionally was specified as must last more than 6 weeks......if it failed after that not an issue, the consumer will buy another so, they considered it a win win.

 

[woodworkingMK]

When I first started out as a young engineer I was asked to design a product for a large American car company, the spec was must last more than 30K miles and must not last more than 60K miles! This was a number of years ago and I though all of that stupidity had gone away......in recent times I was producing parts for a large American supermarket chain. What they wanted was a consumer product that looked good, packaging was very important, functionally was specified as must last more than 6 weeks......if it failed after that not an issue, the consumer will buy another so, they considered it a win win.

This reminds of that documentary The Light Bulb Conspiracy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vas8o4o8YtQ They are talking about how things are made deliberately not to last. Electrical things bought in Germany in late 70's and 80's are still working and outlasting things bought few years ago.

 

[mbartlett99]

I doubt American equivalents are different than Europeans. US is not some third world country, so you can sell third class items. Point is that bessey or bosch both mostly are not produced in Germany but in some Asian country in same factory for Europe and US.

General items in the USA are very much not equivalent; a shirt in the USA is not made to the standard of the same brand in Europe, their food is bloody awful, manufactured goods do not come close to European safety standards. I spend approx 40% of the year over there and am constantly appalled at the standard of gear.

Incidentally the same brand and model are also not constant across Europe either; for instance a Phillips washing machine for the UK is built using better components than one destined for Spain - both coming from the same factory.

 

[woodworkingMK]

Food is another subject, their industrial/processed food is very bad, not that in Europe is much better, but we are talking here about tools. There is not much that can be a different to a pipe clamp, a piece of steel, and yet the price is doubled in Europe.

Incidentally the same brand and model are also not constant across Europe either; for instance a Phillips washing machine for the UK is built using better components than one destined for Spain - both coming from the same factory.

Coming from Eastern Europe, I am well aware of this. There are constant news reports how same brand and type of things for Eastern Europe are made by different standards, and we pay the same price.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I read probably at least 25 years ago that a cheap B&D drill was designed to last three hours. This seemed highly improbable until it was more carefully analysed. The theory was that a drill in a household environment would be used on average once a month for five minutes to do something such as put up a shelf. If you did this every month for three years you would be happy with the drill at £16.99 (thereabouts) and would be happy to buy the same again.
About thirty years ago I spoke to a guy who had developed a cloth for Rover car seats that was guaranteed to wear through after a certain time, he said apparently there were parts in RR aero engines that were designed to have a limited life expectancy, so tying the buyer into heavy annual contract costs for replacements. It was known then how to make car engines that would run for a least 500,000 miles but of course it didn't suit anyone to do it.

 

[skipdiver]

I once watched a documentary on the subject of rip off Britain and the manufacturers referred to our country as Treasure Island, because they consistently made more profit here than anywhere else. Basically, the story went that when pricing products for other countries, the question was asked "how much do we need to charge to cover our costs and make a healthy profit?". When pricing for Britain, the question was asked " how much can we get away with charging for this?"

Seems we don't complain enough but this was some years ago and things are a bit more equal now i think. I also agree that the goods for American markets are sometimes of an inferior quality to Western Europe and there is also the fact that the American market is huge with fast turnover. The standards in America are far less stringent and it's all about the bottom line.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes. I went to NZ 20 years ago and I found Sheffield made tools in an expensive suburban ironmongers for half the price they were here. There was loads of Estwing and other American made stuff there for half what it was here as well. I bought DeWalt stuff and after paying their taxes and import duties and vat on the way back it was still half what it cost here. It wouldn't be the same now, though.

 

[skipdiver]

I think it is a more equal market now because the advent of the internet has levelled the playing field. People think nothing of ordering stuff from the US or China or anywhere in Europe.

 

[RossJarvis]

I find it interesting that a lot of German made tools are considerably more expensive in the UK than Germany, or elsewhere in Europe. As everything else is sort of equal it must be the shipping cost over the channel! I hate to think how much stuff'll cost after Brexit. It's mainly noticeable in trade/industrial stuff, maybe industry is less cost conscious over here than there. 110v stuff is the worst as our volts are different to everyone else's who use 110, I think they're a different colour or contain more smoke.

 

[woodworkingMK]

I am a Bosch fan, and I am following Bosch tools closely. I don't know a single case, where Bosch is more expensive in UK. UK has better prices for Bosch, than Germany, which is really strange.