Price Fixing?

YellowBay · Sep 20, 2007

I'm looking at the Canon 100-400 f4.5/5.6 L IS USM.

Cheapest I can find it in the UK is £890.
Cheapest in the US is $1,100

Taking today's exchange rate into account, (£1 = $1.99), that means I can buy it from the states for £550, a saving of 38%. However, none of the big guys will ship to the UK from the states. Why is this? Have the camera companies decided that "It's not allowed".
I can't see it causing the retailers any financial problems since they still get the $1,100 so who's stopping them?

I realise that this doesn't take into account taxes in the UK, but even taking thaem into account, I'd still be much cheaper. So much in fact, that I could fly to N.Y., buy the lens and fly back for less than it would cost me to buy the damned thing in the UK.

Now I realise that the exchange rate is much higher (or lower depending which side of the pond you're on) than usual, but it's normally around the £1 = £1.75 rate.

Looking forward to a decent conspiracy theory :wink:

Big Mike · Sep 20, 2007

Doesn't B&H ship worldwide? They say that they ship via UPS International.

Take into consideration that you may have to pay duty, Customs fees and Import fees...which may drive the cost up considerably.

EOS_JD · Sep 20, 2007

I know a couple of guys who trade lenses and sell to the UK with no import duty for you to pay as they pay it at source. Most of my equipment was bought from the US and Canada.

PM me if you want the details.

Cheers
Jim

YellowBay · Sep 21, 2007

Big Mike - Thanks for that, I forgot about B&H, $65 shipping so that's looking good. I've emailed them for details on duty etc so I'll let you know.

The question remains though, how come Canon can sell a lens (or any piece of equipment) for half the price in one country?

Maybe it's just the UK that pays over the odds for stuff ( We do have one of the greediest governments in the developed world, but that's for a different discussion board)

How about you guys out there in the E.U.? How much to you pay?

FidelCastrovich · Sep 21, 2007

Not that i consider Israel part of the developed world, :lol:

but the UK is not the only place where prices are incredibly inflated. I'm into road cycling and photography, and there are no duty/custom taxes on products in both those fields, except the 15.5 VAT. And still, you can expect a price difference of about 30 percent between here and abroad.

I recently purchased a 30D/17-55 f2.8/Sigma 70-200 f2.8/grip/ 580 II flash for $3700 from B&H. If i had bought it here, i would have paid $5000, after a 13-15% discount for spending such a large amount in one place.

So, you're not alone. Although, even Israelis know not to buy anything in the UK.

You can even see it on EBAY - something may cost $2 but if you look at ebay.co.uk, it costs £1.75 or close to that.

P.S. I don't think it has anything to do with Canon selling at half price - it's probably due more to local taxes and the general market conditions.

DPW2007 · Sep 21, 2007

Interestingly enough, apparently it costs more money for companies to market in the UK and sell in the UK. Of course, because of how greedy the people up top are, they can get away with it whilst we pay over the odds. The UK does live up to it's phrase though - 'Rip off Britain' it is one of the most expensive places to live...but at least we don't have to pay loads of money for our healthcare like in the USA!

Only way around it is importing or moving elsewhere!

When working out import duty you might want to add 22% on for taxes and duty, that's normally how much it is (though it could be more). So it's not much of a bargain at the end to import.

David

Garbz · Sep 21, 2007

You don't expect the cost of products to actually follow the currency do you? By that theory our petrol prices here down under should have gone back down by now. I mean surely with your iPods and everything else being more expensive in the UK, coupled with the fact that the average income is higher up there you should be used to it by now. Price fixing has little to do with it really, and the refusal to sell to other countries tends to arise from warrenty issues and hassles dealing with internal shipping etc.

Interesting sidenote: Last month because of strange market conditions the AUD traded at 0.88USD a record high. So a Canon 1Ds MkII could be bought for $12000AU locally or $8000AU as a US import. Now there's a difference!