Does it make any sense to buy a TV from UK?

CaptainCompete

CaptainCompete

CaptainCompete

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I moved to UK from EU around 2013 and what struck me then was that it was definitely cheaper to buy consumer electronics in UK. Fast forward to brexit vote in 2016 and since then prices have in my opinion steadily climbed. I was able to save many hundred pounds by buying consumer electronics in UK but now for example LG C9 77" is £5,799 in UK and £3,948 in many places in EU.

On black friday LG C9" 55" was £1,199 in UK and £750 in some EU countries.

Same thing applies to many or most other consumer electronics. GPUs, CPUs, you name it!

Do you all still buy electronics from UK or everyone gets theirs from EU? How can the prices be so different?
 
I assume you would be charge some sort of import duty or tax on bringing a tv in, although I don't know the rate and I don't know if its applied on the cost of the item where it was purchased (Europe) or the price of the UK version
 
Mallers said:
I assume you would be charge some sort of import duty or tax on bringing a tv in, although I don't know the rate and I don't know if its applied on the cost of the item where it was purchased (Europe) or the price of the UK version
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There's no extra cost since we're still in EU. You only pay for delivery.
 
not, from within the EU, hotuk often has deals on the foreign amazon sites,

but the question is the warranty - obviously uk folks want 6years though, and paying postage to ship is back to Timubuktoo, if it went wrong.

I am surprised this £750 deal was not on hotuk.????
 
CaptainCompete said:
The shop in Finland doesn't deliver internationally. Maybe I phrased my question wrong. I'm mostly wondering why the prices are so high here in UK?
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Because they always are higher here.

Wages, rent, rates are all high. As well as delivery costs and customer support.

Would I buy a TV from the EU?

No because I prefer having a valid warranty.

Would I buy a £100 or less item from eu?

Yes because easy to ship back and savings are worth it
 
Psycho Sonny said:
Because they always are higher here.

Wages, rent, rates are all high. As well as delivery costs and customer support.

Would I buy a TV from the EU?

No because I prefer having a valid warranty.

Would I buy a £100 or less item from eu?

Yes because easy to ship back and savings are worth it
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There are many places in Europe that have higher wages and rent etc and still consumer electronics are cheaper. Finland for example.

I just can't figure out why so many items are so MUCH more expensive here, for example the 77" LG.

I don't have any evidence but I'm quite sure it happened after when GBP against EURO fell from 1.4ish to 1.1

And warranty shouldn't be the problem, all these high end products have international or european warranty so it doesn't matter where you live.

The only problem is if you need to return the item within the 14d return period. Sending a 77" back would be such a pain in the ass.
 
Finnish comparison site is showing 1900 euros for a 65 c9 ? https://hintaseuranta.fi/televisiot/lg-oled65c9-65-oled-televisio/8016718

but, yes, finland standard of living and costs, should, conversely, make them more expensive in Finland ...
maybe, it's, cynically, they charge what the percentage of average income, that country is prepared to designate for the product type,
so people don't want, or have room, for a big screen, so they're less expensive than the std of living might indicate ... supply and demand.
 
£750 for an OLED LG C9 delivered to the UK?

You have to factor in the fact we are an island. Take Australia stuff is expensive over there because it's harder to get to.

The cost of getting it to the UK has to be a factor.
 
Would I buy a TV from the EU ? Well considering I have had to send back 3 I bought in England in the past because the screens were smashed, NO Chance!

I will now only buy TV's I can actually collect from a shop, ie Richer Sounds etc.
 
jpaul said:
Finnish comparison site is showing 1900 euros for a 65 c9 ? https://hintaseuranta.fi/televisiot/lg-oled65c9-65-oled-televisio/8016718
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Yep another good example. 1900euros in finland and 2349euros in UK.

Psycho Sonny said:
You have to factor in the fact we are an island. Take Australia stuff is expensive over there because it's harder to get to.

The cost of getting it to the UK has to be a factor.
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UK being an island has little to nothing to do with it. Through the channel tunnel you can get a ton of goods though. Shipping stuff costs little to nothing when in a single market economy EU, Australians pay a ton of TAX for everything which rises prices. Australia is HUGE compared to UK, about 32 times bigger while still having 3 times smaller population. And essentially Finland is even more isolated from rest of Europe than UK is. There are no roads that you can take there unless you drive far up north around sweden or drive through russia. Distance from major economies such as Germany and France and Spain etc is much longer than UKs distance.

I'm fairly sure the price hikes are due to brexit. nothing else has affected the market & value of currency as strongly.

I remember when I moved to UK in 2013 and I was blown away how prices here were cheaper than rest of EU as GBP was so strong. Right after the brexit vote in 2016, GBP fell and it took retailers a long time to react. For a while you could buy everything with 30% discount if you paid with EUROs

Now it's almost like retailers are taking advantage of the situation and artificially keeping the prices up. Would love to hear from an actual retailer what is going on.
 
I'm a little confused here, so tell me if I'm misinterpreting things wrong;

You are living in the UK, earning wages in Euros?, or are you earning in pounds?

I ask this because, if you're earning in euros and then converting the prices from pound to euro then yes things will have gone up by a considerable amount because our currency devalued quite considerably after the 2016 brexit vote. Anything we import will cost more to get to our shops from abroad, especially electronics as a lot are bought in dollars, where we used to get 1.45 dollars for every pound, now we are lucky to get 1.30
 
ljt said:
I'm a little confused here, so tell me if I'm misinterpreting things wrong;

You are living in the UK, earning wages in Euros?, or are you earning in pounds?

I ask this because, if you're earning in euros and then converting the prices from pound to euro then yes things will have gone up by a considerable amount because our currency devalued quite considerably after the 2016 brexit vote. Anything we import will cost more to get to our shops from abroad, especially electronics as a lot are bought in dollars, where we used to get 1.45 dollars for every pound, now we are lucky to get 1.30
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I earn in pounds.

I agree that due to devalued GBP, prices have gone up. But it still doesn't explain the differences that we see today.

That 65" LG OLED above is a great example. The actual numerical value for the euro item (1899) is lower than the numerical value for the gbp item (1999), even though the value of GBP is still higher than EURO (1gbp = 1.17eur). That's unprecedented or at least I've never seen it before.

Back in the day lets say if something cost in rest of europe 1000euros, the price in uk was about £600. But now with UK still being the stronger currency, the numbers have gone around and a 1000euro item is now suddenly £1100 in uk
 
I dont think you can do it by taking the euro price then converting it to pound as I believe everywhere will initially buy the LG sets in dollars converted to their local currency plus any vat that country has
 
ljt said:
I dont think you can do it by taking the euro price then converting it to pound as I believe everywhere will initially buy the LG sets in dollars converted to their local currency plus any vat that country has
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I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around it.

Let's say that a UK and EU(finland in this case) company buy the same item for $1000.

With current exchange rates:

UK company pays £769.60 + 20% VAT = £923.52

FIN company pays €904.14 + 24% VAT = €1,121.13

Now the numerical value for EUR is bigger as it should be since GBP is stronger. So going back to the LG 65" as an example, how is it £380ish more expensive when both countries paid the same USD amount for it?
 
CaptainCompete said:
I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around it.

Let's say that a UK and EU(finland in this case) company buy the same item for $1000.

With current exchange rates:

UK company pays £769.60 + 20% VAT = £923.52

FIN company pays €904.14 + 24% VAT = €1,121.13

Now the numerical value for EUR is bigger as it should be since GBP is stronger. So going back to the LG 65" as an example, how is it £380ish more expensive when both countries paid the same USD amount for it?
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The difference does seem larger than usual I agree, but without knowing if the Finnish retailer had any special agreement with its supplier to do an offer, or what they actually purchased them at then it's hard to say. Perhaps they forgot to add VAT :P
 
ljt said:
The difference does seem larger than usual I agree, but without knowing if the Finnish retailer had any special agreement with its supplier to do an offer, or what they actually purchased them at then it's hard to say. Perhaps they forgot to add VAT :p
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You can even look at other EU countries and the prices there which are very similar to ones in Finland. It can't be that all other countries have a special agreement except UK :)
 
when I posted the finland link - it was to say this was a minimal difference .. as soon as all the b9's are sold in the uk, we will be down to their prices,
so just a stock issue, and we/I don't know their warranty period ... 4 additional years in the uk is worth £200 on an oled ?

Further - with the brexit/pound uncertainty/risk, I can well believe uk sellers curry/jl/rs bought up the old b9 stock
 
jpaul said:
when I posted the finland link - it was to say this was a minimal difference .. as soon as all the b9's are sold in the uk, we will be down to their prices,
so just a stock issue, and we/I don't know their warranty period ... 4 additional years in the uk is worth £200 on an oled ?

Further - with the brexit/pound uncertainty/risk, I can well believe uk sellers curry/jl/rs bought up the old b9 stock
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I wouldn't say the difference is minimal nor that it's a stock issue. Retailers in europe are full of B9.

However warranty is a good point. As far as I can see, most European retailers only give 2. That definitely increases the price but it wouldn't explain the full difference.
 
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