

Ask HN: prices of electronics in Europe - mdaniel

I noticed in the "startup in Ireland" discusion, the comments mention that electronics were expensive there. They are expensive here in Paris, too. As a general rule, whatever the price is on Amazon.com, one can just just replace the "$" with "€".<p>I was wondering if that is caused by decreased demand, higher import duties, less active shipping lanes, or what?<p>I tried to see if this had already been discussed, but the keywords in my question made a meaningful query challenging.
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fabiandesimone
In Spain is the same. Electronics are way to expensive.

I'm guessing is a tax thing, but if it's not imposed there's an opportunity
for electronics arbitrage (which I see a lot when photographers friends go to
the US, they take orders from other friends and charge a tiny % to bring the
equipment back home)

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mdaniel
Is there a demand for electronics/computers/etc within the general population
of Spain?

I get the feeling that electronics and computers (outside of the work
environment, anyway) are not important to Parisians. That would explain why
things are expensive here: there isn't a high demand for those items.

However, in the startup-Ireland discussion, the very _discussion_ was about
startups, who I would think are the kind of people that would want fast
computers and the associated peripherals. So there _should_ be high demand in
Dublin, but based on the websites I checked, my "flip the currency sign"
metric still holds.

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nextparadigms
Most of it is the VAT and other taxes. I believe Americans pay something
similar to VAT after they've already purchased the product, but someone can
correct me if I'm wrong.

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mdaniel
There are sales taxes, which vary _wildly_ by jurisdiction: from 0% to I
believe 10 or 12%. And you are correct, they are not ever presented in the
listed price (which is a huge irritant). Due to a quirk of the Constitution,
buying online usually falls under "interstate commerce" and is therefor
excluded from sales tax.

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mapster
Yes, the price is the same, more or less on consumer electronics. The fact
that the average monthly wage in Italy is ~2000 euros, consider that an HD TV
is more costly than to an American, who with the same job, takes 5000 USD a
month. I believe it is due to the inflation that arose unchecked after the
Euro took root in Italy.

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laaph
While I am aware some discussions on HN make it sound like everyone in the US
has a Silicon Valley type of salary, I assure you that is not the case, and
the average US salary about $43000/per year, or closer to $3500/month (which,
without looking it up, I think is about €2500).

Having said that, I still note that everything is more expensive in Europe
(er, well, Netherlands and UK, the countries I'm most familiar with) than in
the United States.

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GBiT
Price is higher because you pay 18-25% VAT to government in EU .

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hendrix
entry level MBP in the USA is 1199 + 8.6% (in WA) = $1302 in Ireland (include
vat) is $1606.

