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photios | 4 months ago

Wow, those US vs EU prices...

I picked a random Seagate 8TB drive that the site lists as costing $103. It's GBP 145 in the UK (~EUR 166) and as much as EUR 200 in my Eastern Europe country!

I'm blaming tariffs and VAT. The EU sucks.

discuss

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dvfjsdhgfv|4 months ago

> The EU sucks.

I, on the other hand, I love the EU. In spite of the fact that many products are sold for a lower price in the American market (not just electronics, also cars and others). I imagine it's even worse in the Australian market.

But, in the grand scheme of things, I can live with that, with free education and healthcare, among others.

vladvasiliu|4 months ago

Sure, I'm all for paying taxes if you get good services in return.

But what kills me is when buying stuff from the US and paying whatever import taxes are required on top of shipping, and VAT on top of all that, you still end up cheaper.

Taking GP's example, shipping, taxes on the product + shipping won't end up more than doubling the initial price.

Hell, things are so ridiculous that a while ago I bought an Italian-made[0] tripod and gear head from BH in NY. Had it shipped by UPS (large and heavy parcel, so not cheap), paid taxes on the complete price, and it was still way cheaper than buying locally from France.

--

[0] It pretends to be actually made in Italy, not only an Italian brand off-shoring production to Asia.

photios|4 months ago

> I can live with that, with free education and healthcare, among others.

That is not a EU-wide thing. If you are getting some of it in your country, enjoy it while it lasts.

FirmwareBurner|4 months ago

That doesn't explain why UK prices are lower than EU. In fact it should be the opposite as the EU is a bigger economic region than UK.

Either the EU is doing something wrong or the UK is doing something right or both.

port11|4 months ago

Depending on where you live, Amazon might be one of the more expensive options. I've bought disks from a smaller Dutch website for our home server, for about 3€ cheaper per TB than Amazon's best offer. There's much better places to get IT stuff in Europe.

leipert|4 months ago

US prices are without sales tax, depending on state/location this could add 10%. But given the value of the USD, still a crazy difference.

NoboruWataya|4 months ago

Yes, the difference is crazy. I'm trying to buy 4x6TB or 4x8TB at the moment and the prices are just painful.