[dayamax]

I was thiinking of buying the Shure E2c. Its price over here in Switzerland is 145CHF, i.e. almost 140 $, whereas the price on amazon is 72$ (almost half

). Why is there such a big price difference ?
Is there any way i can get the phones in switzerland at US prices ?

 

[Solan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dayamax /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was thiinking of buying the Shure E2c. Its price over here in Switzerland is 145CHF, i.e. almost 140 $, whereas the price on amazon is 72$ (almost half ). Why is there such a big price difference ? Is there any way i can get the phones in switzerland at US prices ?

Look i the used section. Headphones are roughly 2-2.5 times US price in Europe, depending on brand. The reason? Because they can! Even the German Sennheiser and the Austrian AKG are cheaper in the US than in their countries of origin. Again why? Because that's the prices they think they can get away with. Solution? Permanent boycott of buying headphones in your home country. Vote with your wallet. Even better: avoid the brands that have such differential pricing "because they can", esp. Senn and AKG, and buy some ... Japanese instead. Audio Technica has some mighty fine looking headphones, for instance.

 

[Oliver :)]

I second the notion of "because they can". You can fool yourself all the way with cost of import and whatnot, in the end it comes down to local distributers and the manufacturer scraping off a big, fat margin. Some like that margin so much (like say Grado) that they put restrictions on their dealers when it comes to international orders. That is the reason why I do not own a set of Grados. In the end, you just have to be an informed customer. Shop around, calculate the cost for shipping and duties, compare, smile, click "order".

PS: I have to add that I have no problem with local dealers making a margin. In HiFi, they often have to take a lot of risk, rent a lot of room, and pamper their customers in order to make a sale. They have to make a living. This is the same with all low-volume products, the margin is high, and while nobody buys them they eat a lot of expensive space. Headphones are a different matter in that regard.

 

[Solan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oliver /img/forum/go_quote.gif PS: I have to add that I have no problem with local dealers making a margin. In HiFi, they often have to take a lot of risk, rent a lot of room, and pamper their customers in order to make a sale. They have to make a living. This is the same with all low-volume products, the margin is high, and while nobody buys them they eat a lot of expensive space. Headphones are a different matter in that regard.

The local dealers are usually nice about it. One local dealer here stopped stocking HD650 because people came to listen to it at his shop, and then went online to buy it from the US at less than he paid the importer/distributor. So the problem link is the distributor. I'm told that the European Grado distributors actually get them for a very fair price and that it's their add-on that makes for the price factor 2-2.5 between Europe and the US. And it's got nothing to do with fear of being left with excess when that same policy is applied to big sellers like SR-60, 80 and 125. Well, retailers may risk being stuck with excess because of the artificially jacked-up price.

In another thread, it was explained why Sennheiser is more expensive in Germany than in the US. They used to be cheaper, but then came complaints from the US. What did Senn do? They jacked up the European prices. Brilliant!

It is course not restricted to hi-fi equipment(*). European prices are in general higher than US prices, and it's not all due to taxes and whatnots. There have been studies, and again the conclusion points to the simple gullibility of Europeans: The companies charge high prices because they can.

(*) in all fairness it must be said that some electronics stuff is actually very well priced here in Norway. Probably when there is no restrictions from the producer and the seller imports directly without a greedy intermediary having monopoly on imports. I bought a DVD player a few weeks ago, and the Norwegian price was - despite 25% VAT added on top - less than the US price.

 

[GUNS]

Everything is going up in price. Companies aren't happy anymore unless they are earning hundreds of millions, not just millions. They will have to stop soon though because prices are increasing too quick for the consumer. As for the American vs. European price debate, some tax definatly makes up a portion of that, but certainly not all. It is simply "because they can". They want to please share holders. Its funny because as far as expenses go, they will have hardly risen (take wages for example.. they have just started to increase but very slowly).

 

[^adm^]

my confusion is opposite of what we are used to, we just have a Grado distributor here in Turkey and their prices is nearly same with USA

And they provide 2 year warranty.

 

[Solan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ^adm^ /img/forum/go_quote.gif my confusion is opposite of what we are used to, we just have a Grado distributor here in Turkey and their prices is nearly same with USA And they provide 2 year warranty.

He's not thinking of emigrating to Norway anytime soon, is he?

 

[fdhfdy]

I saw a Boss cd player selling for US$ 1000 on the market while us price is only US$ 399. I would pay much more even it was sale for half price

 

[Snuglez]

I am serious about wanting to buy the Grado 325i. At my local store in the Netherlands they cost me 369 euro (= 575 dollar). In the US the exact same Grados cost 295 dollar...I'm paying almost double that amount here! Well actually...I'm not, since I'm not getting them. Since Grado doesn't ship to Europe it pretty hard to get those for a reasonable price. I think they are worth 295 dollars, but not 575. How do you European Head-Fi'ers solve this 'problem'?

 

[dayamax]

by buying alessandros maybe..

 

[andare]

yes, they screw us up here in europe because they can.

also because Americans are the biggest consumers ever (someone told me you can buy gallon sized sour cream in US supermarkets...) they buy so much stuff that dealers can and have to lower the prices. It's a vicious circle.

probably in Europe we have more steps from manufacturer/importer to retailer. Also we have no class action in Europe, though we still have (to a certain extent) working unions as opposed to the US where unions where smashed by Roosevelt many years ago.

and let's not forget the fictional currency conversion 1 $ = 1 euro

last but not least buying online is not for everyone: you have to be relatively young to be tech savvy AND you have to speak english so you can buy f.e from Amazon. That rules out my parents (not technologically inclined because of their age) and almost all of my friends (who don't speak english).

so there you have it. to make us europeans feel better let's think of the Brazilians: not only is their country compeltely messed up, they also have to pay the world's highest price for those "designed in california" iPods (PS i am an iPod owner)

 

[Tiemen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snuglez /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am serious about wanting to buy the Grado 325i. At my local store in the Netherlands they cost me 369 euro (= 575 dollar). In the US the exact same Grados cost 295 dollar...I'm paying almost double that amount here! Well actually...I'm not, since I'm not getting them. Since Grado doesn't ship to Europe it pretty hard to get those for a reasonable price. I think they are worth 295 dollars, but not 575. How do you European Head-Fi'ers solve this 'problem'?

I don't want Grado's.
But you can look at the sale/trade forum here at Head-Fi for them to show up. And then of course you have to be so lucky that the seller is willing to ship it to Europe.

 

[lweijs]

Most annoying thing is still shipping from the United States, the added taxes and import costs are ridiculous.

 

[Rico67]

Go on Ebay.com

 

[Rednamalas1]

VATs gotta suck for you guys

I thought 10-20% custom charges were bad...I should stop complaining.