[CUBE] powerlogix-europe.com

Thu Mar 6 02:00:31 PST 2003

Whilst I AGREE that some UK retailers are marking up their US-sourced
products a little too much, doing a straight dollar-pound/euro conversion
isn't exactly fair on them either.

Any retailer that sells a US-sourced product has to import them into their
country to sell, and as such are subject to import duties - in much the same
way UPS or FedEx pass them onto us when we buy from the US - plus the
shipping costs etc. Obviously they can't get a "mate" to ship them 100 units
privately as "gifts".

Import duties vary according the classification of the product and (I
believe) you have to have a license to do it, so it's quite easy to see how
a $100 product can turn into a £200 product when you're only dealing with a
few hundred units. It's also worth stating that a privately shipped "gift"
comes with no warranty either.

All that said, I'm still disappointed that the larger dealers - Cancom,
MacWarehouse et al are not passing volume discounts to us, as they must be
importing a great deal of products and the costs of importing can be
amortised over this great number of products as opposed to one specific
product type that a smaller specialist dealer may choose to import.

Just my 2cents. I'm watching the 1.2 prices like a hawk myself and will
pounce when either my resolve gives up, or they drop below £500 from a UK
supplier

Tom

On 6/3/03 8:49 am, "Meirion Roscoe" <roscoe at macunlimited.net> wrote:

> Hear-hear.  Well said.  I am fed up of being ripped off by UK PLC and
> unscrupulous companies that take advantage of this situation.  I have a
> friend in the States and that is how I get my stuff.  Not illegal, just
> tactical.  That powerlogix upgrade does look tempting doesn't it?
> 
> Rossi
> 
> 
> On Thursday, Mar 6, 2003, at 03:22 Europe/London, John Allan wrote:
> 
>> And so who are these people cruising around the internet taking folks
>> credit
>> card details!?!
>> 
>> Magnus,
>> 
>> you have to find a friend in the US to buy one from OWC for you, strip
>> the
>> thing out of the box and ship it privately via USPS Global Priority to
>> you
>> as a gift.
>> 
>> Otherwise you are going to get hit by VAT *AND* a nice obligatory "
>> handling
>> charge " by DHL or UPS which together will just about knock out the
>> difference between buying from them and buying from one of the European
>> sharks.
>> 
>> [ The couriers make more profit out of that handling charge than they
>> do
>> shipping it transatlantic ].
>> 
>> What is it about Importers that they really think they can add on 50%
>> to US
>> prices and expect items to sell?
>> 
>> American companies have been making this mistake for so long in the UK
>> of
>> using a one dollar equals one pound ratio. And Mac companies so ready
>> to rip
>> the love blind MacHeads off.
>> 
>> Only Sonnet seems to have been able to keep the lid on this recently
>> as far
>> as I can see.
>> 
>> For example : for Cube
>> 
>> Powerlogix 1 Gig upgrade from Cancom UK :    GBP 656     USD   1017
>> 
>> Powerlogix 1 Gig upgrade from OWC                  GBP  316     USD
>>  490
>> 
>> For the difference I could fly to New York, have a free holiday and
>> pick it
>> up myself. It really does not cost any more to ship something from CA
>> to NYC
>> and shipping from OWC to the UK is faster and more efficient than using
>> *ANY* bozo UK distributor. [ can these figures REALLY be right? See
>> below ]
>> 
>> My bet is that one day some German outfit will suss this out and wipe
>> the
>> Euro Mac market clean. UK companies are so crap.
>> 
>> Cancom even advertise a PowerLogix PowerForce Dual G4 1.2GHz for Apple
>> Cube
>> Mac !
>> 
>> John
>> 
>>> Made4Macs is no longer our Euro distributor....they do not have any
>>> product.
>>> 
>>>> http://www.powerlogix-europe.com
>>>> 
>>>> Which is really made4macs
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> --  
>>> ----
>>> PowerLogix
>> 
>> 
>> http://www.cancomuk.com/products/
>> searchresults.lasso?code=50508&show_detail=
>> PowerLogix%20PowerForce%20Dual%20G4%201.2GHz%20for%20Apple%20Cube%20%20
>> Mac%2
>> 0&fromlist=yes
>> 
>> http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/
>> Upgrades.cfm?model=128&type=Acceleration&TI=
>> %23TimeFormat%28Now%28%29%2C+&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades
>> 
>> 
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