UK PC components and electronics cost

Guest2

Guest2

Guest2

Soldato
Joined
6 May 2009
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20,408
Why do we pay about the same in GBP as it is in USB for most electronics?

E.g. Some RAM, in UK its £219.99 direct from the seller. $239.99 (£176.58) direct from the seller on the US site, already a nice saving of £43.41

Resellers, it can be had in UK for £212.76 or a US reseller for $219.99 (£161.86)

Do people in US pay an additonal tax or something once they have purchased items or do we just get ripped off in UK for everything?
 
In the US they pay 4-10% electronic tax (sales, state, city tax) i think. If your importing electronics from US to the UK an extra 20% tax and sometimes processing fees (which can be high depending on courier) will be added to the item and a further processing fee will be added when it arrives in the UK (this is rare but could happen due to bad processing forms).
 
Mostly it's just down to the fact that the US prices do not include sales tax, which varies by state where as our national VAT is added to the price you see, as has already been mentioned above. But, also I think market size plays a part, the US is a bigger market which likely reduces costs a bit too. Having said that, since Donald Trump slapped an import duty on tech from China (not sure what the specifics of that are exactly) that could actually change the picture a bit for the US market, a lot of ancillary stuff like fans and cases are manufactured in China rather than Taiwan or S Korea like a lot of the chips are. Also if the final assembly of a motherboard is done in China then it's going to get caught by that aswell I believe as it becomes a Chinese manufacturded import for the US market. I know this last part is only loosely related to your question, but you might find there is much less of a difference when adding federal, state and the Trump tax onto the products sold on the US market.
 
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