Rant Why do we get ripped off big time in the UK?

I don't know about everything but take a some speakers I'm thinking of getting, I could get them for the same price shipped from the US with import duty which is 80% of the cost of the speakers themselves then the actual postage as I couls order them from a shop in the UK, I think this is rediculas. the best part is it's not like they are even manufactured in the US but china!

The same with PC components, the 6970 is £30 cheaper in the US not that this is too much when spending £310 anyway but it's not the point!

Things like phones/ipods/ipads are cheaper in the US.

The only thing I can think of is the shipping and import costs to the UK but for things that are mainly manufactured in china and asia how is it that much more to import to the US than UK??

Another thing petrol costs? Insurance costs? All massively more expensive in the UK then US.


Is amazes me sometimes when I watch some US shows when they say you'll need this, this and this for a house build or something, I think that will cost a lot and they pay hardly anything for what costs so much in the UK.

I actually think we get mugged off tbh.

Please enlighten me!

 

Tax, laws, economies of scale and what you expect to pay for stuff.

Tax everything and the cost of living goes it. It costs a lot to ship it to warehouses, it costs a lot to get it to your door. Things have to be shipped or air freight in mostly, there's few routes for trucks and bar Ireland, we're at the end of Europe. Even someone as big as Newegg doesn't see the UK as viable.

It costs a lot to employ people: there are lots of benefits companies have to provide. Corporation tax is quite a lot etc so companies have to make good profit margins to keep afloat, let alone expand, and not put risk into unknown brands. This is why we get relatively poor choice and all marketing is brand heavy. The barriers to entry for new companies are also high.

There's economies of scale too: you have "only" 65M people versus 350M in America and more in Germany. It's not uncommon for retailers in the UK look for well into double-digit margins where America is sub-10% in the same examples, because they make it up in volume. (For popular products that can be 30/50/60% profit, because people will 'expect' to pay it: iPad in HK = £320, iPad in UK = £460)

But before you cry about it, just think you have free healthcare, free dental, free school until 16, families get better benefits than most countries (even if people do poo poo them in the UK) - especially for pregnant women (Taiwan they get 8 weeks in total - pregnant women often work until the day before they give birth to maximise the time after!) and employment benefits for sick-days and more hoilday days than most of the world (again the Taiwanese get no hoilday in the first year, and then 5 days the second year + sick days = holiday days). You may never need it all, but you still use some of it and you might want more someday. Better that than needing it but its unavailable to you.

At the other end of the stick you could have low tax, low wage and have access to relatively NO premium brands because no one can afford it: everyone has to buy the cheapest stuff and make it last. There is no middle ground unless you elevate yourself up the social ladder to Director/CEO, who on average earn more than at any time in modern history compared to the underlings on the floor/manning the phones.

 

Well, a friend spent a few months in London a about a year ago. She often said that stuff was much cheaper there than here in Norway...

 

Then Norway must be effin expensive.

London is very expensive to live in.

 

London is so expensive. went there for xmas curry and drinks the other night, spent over £70 excluding tube, taxi back and train.

 

Taxes
Taxes
Taxes

Thats what it boils down to mate...

 

you want to talk about being ripped off. here is a scan of a table in one of todays irish papers comparing average irish prices and average UK and EU prices


petrol prices arent a good comparison as road tax can differ alot.

My gf has a 1.4 car and is from NI so its registered up there, she pays something like £135 per year but if she had it in ireland shed pay close to €400. So petrol is cheaper here but tax is higher. I myself have an astra diesel and have to pay €600 a year. Swings and roundabouts really

 

Norway IS expensive, but I have no idea where all the money go. Health sector is damaged, we can't afford proper maintenance of the roads, schools are falling apart and so on...

They did build a monster of a opera house in Oslo, though (Who the hell will ever use that??)

 

The reason petrol is higher is generally because of tax, but our fuel is so much higher quality than most places in the world.

 

don't even start with prices high wanna trade uk for portugal ?
petrol prices way high , car prices stupidly higher , taxes on top of taxes ? (well this bit ain't true now ,we used to pay iva, same as your vat , on top of our car tax , witch meant we paid a tax over a tax , but not any more because they just created a new tax that is both of them combined and called it another name ) at least the drinking age is 16 so that we can all start young to drown our sorrows lol beautiful country awesome people f!"##$%&/ C!"$"#%#$ politicians

 

Petrol prices across Europe a few years ago. It's only gonna have got worse since.

http://www.see-search.com/business/fuelandpetrolpriceseurope.htm

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8290550.stm

 

Talking about different prices in US and UK... Just compare prices of Adobe products. In UK you have to pay almost 100% more than in US for the same product. Why such big difference?

 

Yes this sort off stuff annoys me. Does the same apply for download?

 

I dont think we get it so bad over here tbh, Yes other places appear cheaper for products, but i think the general cost of living is cheaper here than a lot of other countries imo

 

Greece is farking expensive when it comes to fuel for the car, and general supermarket goods. We pay the same prices you pay in the UK (I've lived for many years in the UK) give or take, and the average pay per hour is 2.80 euros instead of £5.50 or so. Bit of a joke really. If I didn't live with my parents, we weren't renting our house out in the uk, and if the weather wasn't as crap as it is over there, then maybe I'd be back in the UK.

At the moment though, I just buy whatever is feasible from amazon uk, for less than what I'd pay here. Example; Sony blu ray player; on amazon £100. Here? 175 Euros!!! Samsung C650 LCD 100hz TV? Here; 1000 euros, in the UK? £650. As I say, insane. And I'm comparing web prices here to amazon uk. LOL.

 

Taxes etc. don't fully account for the difference in price, the manufacturers/retailers know that they can charge more here anyway. Take the new Google Nexus S as an example - the UK price is £560, while the US price is only $530. The current exchange rate is ~1.56 dollars to the pound. So the UK price in dollars would be $875, and the US price in pounds would be £338. The usual 1:1 exchange rate for electronics prices is bad enough, but this take rip-off Britain to a whole new level.

 

Second that,
Amazon UK is a lot cheaper than Amazon Germany for a lot of products.
I've just bought books that are 20% off the German price including shipping (while shipping here would be free)
Interestingly enough Amazon.UK seems to ship from France. Is there a distribution centre in the UK?

And no, it's not that "UK is at the end of europe", our pricing here (Germany) is about as high as in the UK (at least now that the pound has devaluated)

And yes, we have a (far) superiour healthcare system compared to the USA...but we pay dearly for it. ~16% of my wages are just healtcare.

 

Its because we are british we complain alot but rarely actually do anything.

 

You want to try and do something? Tax Legislation is so much bull that challenging it is impossible.