New Kindle Pricing in UK

[Tony Crooks]

Can you believe it? New basic Kindle in US  = $79. In the UK = £89

On that basis the  basic Kindle Fire will probably top £230 when it comes to the UK. 32GB refurb first gen iPad with WiFi = £319. New 16GB iPad 2 with just WiFI = £399.

I think I see a 'no contest' emerging.

Regards,

Tony

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Tony  Crooks

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[Paul Howard]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 1:27 PM, Tony Crooks <tcr...@me.com> wrote:

Can you believe it? New basic Kindle in US  = $79. In the UK = £89

That's because ours includes the 20% VAT. The price on the US store will not include any sales tax (which varies from state to state and county to county). So depending on where you live in the states you have to add your local and federal sales tax to that price. This catches a lot of people out on the Apple store (and other online shops)  too making it look like our prices are much higher. 

 

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Paul Howard

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[Ranulph Glanville]

Yes, but still, $79 is about £50, not £89. You need to add 80% tax to the US price of the raw kindle to equal the price here.

It's the same with Apple. Believe me, I check prices all over the world. The max state tax in the US is about 10% (New York, California is 9.5% if I remember right).

So the prices here are inflated and involve profiteering. You may remember this was an old battle with Apple, and the EU managed to get deal with them to agree not to charge more than 10% more in real terms in the EU than in the US, perhaps in the early 90s. Somehow, this got forgotten, often through manipulations coming from changes in rates of exchange. The result is that European, and specially Uk prices are far higher than US prices, even allowing for state sales tax.

There's no excuse, and we shouldn't be making excuses either for Apple or for Amazon.

Ranulph

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[Tony Crooks]

On 29 Sep 2011, at 13:49, Paul Howard wrote:

This catches a lot of people out on the Apple store (and other online shops)  too making it look like our prices are much higher.

Took notice of all that. £89 less Vat equates to $111at today's exchange rate which would imply a US sales tax of  40% on the basic $79 price - rather over the top, I think.

[andrew...@gmail.com]

FYI Kindle Fire not coming to the UK:-

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/kindle-fire-touch-not-available-to-uk-european-markets/12999

[Diana]

Just to add my comment on US versus UK prices.  I was able to visit the Apple 5th Ave store in New York earlier this month and purchased my Magic Trackpad for US$69.99 + 8.875% NY sales tax making it US$75 which at today's rate is £48.16 compared with £59.99 on the Apple UK website. Still deciding whether I prefer the Trackpad to the Magic Mouse or not as still getting to grips with Lion.

Diana

[Tony Crooks]

On 30 Sep 2011, at 10:06, Diana wrote:

purchased my Magic Trackpad for US$69.99 + 8.875% NY sales tax making it US$75 which at today's rate is £48.16 compared with £59.99 on the Apple UK website. 

Discounting UK VAT and adding back NY sales tax rate the equivalent to the US price is £52.25 versus £48.16.

[Patricia Wilson]

Is this just me? I find the inability to choose the direction of message selection when deleting mail extremely annoying. I have my Mail sorted so that the newest mail is at the top. As I work down the list deleting those I don't want, I want it to select the next message down ie the earlier one but it insists on moving up to the one I've already seen.

If I reverse the sort order the behaviour is the same ie it selects the later message albeit moving down.

Do I just have to live with it?

Pat