Can anyone explain this amazon.de checkout price difference?

GhostInTheRuins

Is it charging me a higher Irish tax rate or is there some other reason it's €85 dearer all of a sudden?

Kenny Logins

Local VAT rate.

vicwatson

No free shipping with this item:eek: ! MEH !

TheInquisitor

Yup the difference is the Vat rate in Ireland which is higher. Buying from the UK adds 2%. 21% there versus 23% here.

GhostInTheRuins

Grand, thanks lads. I had a feeling that that's what it was but I wasn't completely sure.

vicwatson wrote: »

No free shipping with this item:eek: ! MEH !

Yeah you'd think there would be, but it's still €360 cheaper than buying it in Ireland.

-( i )- Wicker

why not get it on amazon.co.uk? cheaper + free shipping

GhostInTheRuins

-( i )- Wicker wrote: »

why not get it on amazon.co.uk? cheaper + free shipping

It's actually dearer on the uk site even with free shipping.



Or would it be cheaper not to use amazon's currency converter do you think?

rubadub

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Buying from the UK adds 2%. 21% there versus 23% here.

2% is about right, when the difference is greater and the price is higher you may want to do the exact calculation.

If an item is £100 ex vat it would be £121 in the UK and £123 buying from amazon.co.uk to here. Once a EU company does over €35,000 worth of business per year they are obliged to pay our VAT.

So the advertised price is £121, and you pay 1.65% more.

Many people were caught out by sony deal about getting the VAT back on your purchases. The deal was you buy from say powercity, send the receipt to sony and they sent you VAT back. People wrongly thought if the plasma was €1000 they get €230 back, when really they only got €187, since the TV was €813 ex VAT so it was 23% of that, not the 1000. A few companies do this VAT back trick.

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

It's actually dearer on the uk site even with free shipping.

They can have greatly different RRPs in different regions. The EU model would be a higher volume item than one with the UK plug. The likes of komplett will send you the EU model with a plug convertor, while I think amazon would send the proper one intended for your country.

Also becareful of other things, like laptops with different keyboard layouts. Or default settings. I used a camera once and any time the battery went dead or was taken out (had to be take out to get the memory card out) then it went to the default language, which was japanese. You had to find your way though japanese menus to reset the language.

-( i )- Wicker

Dunno where amazon are getting that exchange rate, XE.com is exchanging at over €100 less

rubadub

-( i )- Wicker wrote: »

Dunno where amazon are getting that exchange rate, XE.com is exchanging at over €100 less

Nobody gets the XE rate though. I expect to get about 2% worse than XE, and as its a high price item then €100 is a bit high but not ridiculous percentage wise, it is high though.

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

Or would it be cheaper not to use amazon's currency converter do you think?

I have done the caluculation a few times on amazon.co.uk and it was invariably cheaper to go with my bank of ireland mastercard.

rubadub wrote: »

I ordered some items on amazon on 30 april. Came to

-Order Total: GBP 93.48

using their currency converter it was

-Payment Total: EUR 112,43

I checked on XE at the time and it was

93.48 GBP=107.672 EUR

Of course nobody gets this and it is usually 2-3% more than this using CC or paypal so I chose to pay in sterling via CC.

My BOI mastercard statement was
93.48GBP RATE 0.8549 €109.34

So mastercard was only 1.5% more than XE
Amazon was 4.4% more
And I saved €3.09 by choosing to pay in sterling rather than use amazons converter.

My statement shows the payment on 4 May, so I wonder if it is taken on that date and if the XE rate would have been the usual 2-3% I would expect.

I have done the above about 3-4 times and always saved using the CC.

Kenny Logins

-( i )- Wicker wrote: »

Dunno where amazon are getting that exchange rate, XE.com is exchanging at over €100 less

Is that a retail rate though?

GhostInTheRuins

rubadub wrote: »

I have done the caluculation a few times on amazon.co.uk and it was invariably cheaper to go with my bank of ireland mastercard.

I have done the above about 3-4 times and always saved using the CC.

Their rate seems to be about the same still, I work it out at 4.2% more than xe.

If my credit card rate was the same as yours at 1.5% over the xe rate, the total would be more or less the same as the amazon.de total
€2598 + 1.5% = €2637.

I'm not sure what's the best option. Probably the uk site just incase there's any correspondence needed

rubadub

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

If[/I] my credit card rate was the same as yours..

On paypal you can enter a figure and see what exchange rate you would get for it. There is/was some site, I think visa, and you could enter a figure and enter your own banks method of surcharge (e.g. a one off fee or %) and it gave you the exchange rate and what it would actually cost you.

I can't find it now, but visa was always better than paypal.

sandin

vat Germany = 19%
Vat ireland = 23%

Price ex vat = 2142.86
net + 19% = 2549.99
net + 23% = 2635.71