IT’S NOT THE FIRST time that Dell has been caught ripping off the people of Europe but it’s certainly one of the nastiest cases in a good while. This time European customers are being charged almost double what US customers pay for an item.
Suppose you’re in the market for a 20-inch LCD monitor. They’re not cheap in the first place, right? Here in the UK, Dell charges £834.25 for its UltraSharp 2001FP. It’s pretty much the same as the LG Flatron L2010P LCD Monitor reviewed here on The INQ a while ago, so a very nice monitor indeed. You might even think that the UK price is not too bad for such a large panel. But it’s $1,483.13 when you convert to US dollars at the current exchange rate.
If you go onto the Dell Germany site, you’re going to pay more. EUR1,321.24 to be precise or the equivalent of USD$1,583.24. So either German tax is higher than the UK’s or there’s already some shenanigans going on.
But it’s popping over to the Dell US site that will have Europeans spitting feathers. On the other side of the Atlantic, the UltraSharp 2001FP costs all of $839. That means that the Brits are facing a 77% price hike for no apparent reason, there’s certainly no taxation that comes anywhere near that, and the poor old Germans are paying 88% over the odds. Not very nice at all.
Damn, now that’s capitalism. (And counterproductive in the long run.)
That isn’t terribly off the mark from what I’d expect. I admit that I haven’t kept close track since I haven’t lived in the UK for years, but back in the day if something cost X dollars in the US it cost right around X dollars in the UK. And at that time the exchange rate was between $1.50-$1.70 to the pound. You do the math.
Next, go shopping for things in Portugal versus Germany circa 1998!
How is Dell ripping off anyone? Are Europeans required to purchase those products? That article is full of anger at… nothing. There’s no wrong here. Dell has offered certain products for certain prices. What a shocking expose.
Um… British goods are more expensive here. We might have free trade but some protectionism still exists. Is this is a case of higher (European or British set) tariffs being passed on to the customer?
No, I doubt that. I thought about buying that monitor until I noticed how expensive it was in Sweden ($1300+tax), so I bought the Samsung 193P ($730+tax) instead.
Oh no Dell is charging high prices. Sucks to be forced to buy monitors at a 77% price hike, except oh wait they aren’t forced to buy anything from Dell. The monitor comsumers can just get them at the vendor offering monitors for 77% less. Damn you capitalism, allowing people to voluntarly buy goods or not.
I see the usual idiots are present. Of course you don’t have to buy these items. But perhaps somebody has an explanation, some inside scoop as it were? I mean, if Dell doesn’t want to sell these items in Europe, why not just stop offering them? Is there no competition over there? Is Dell the only choice?
No, there are plenty of UK based PC firms that compete on pricing. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that Dell hasn’t gotten into that segment of the market in Europe. They are probably targeting volume business sales to multinational corporations that have Dell as an approved supplier and taking advantage of that to boost their profit margin.
No wrong? It’s bad for the consumer, then it is wrong and should be exposed. The media is showing the consumer a disparity in pricing it should be aware of, or one of the points of the market economy is completely lost.
How is Dell ripping off anyone? Are Europeans required to purchase those products? That article is full of anger at… nothing. There’s no wrong here. Dell has offered certain products for certain prices. What a shocking expose.
Is it ethical to sell the same thing to different people for different prices? For that matter, is it legal in the United States? I think there’s some regulation about this, but I don’t know the specifics.
Of course it’s legal. What a strange thing to say. Stores have sales one day but not the next, they give discounts on volume or to customers who are part of an incentive program or to people using their store’s credit card. Some McDonald’s francises sell Filet O Fishes for 99 cents on Fridays, some opt out of the program. Just two days ago I went into the place where I normally buy my suits and the owner offered me 20% off shirts because I shop there a lot.
I think the thing here is that you (and Anders even moreso) have this sort of socialist idea in your head that producers have to work for the overall good and well-being of consumers. But the system (here, at least, and I presume in the UK) is set up so that producers and consumers are in an equal, arms-length transaction where each is working for their own benefit. It works because they have to benefit the other guy to some extent if they want to benefit themselves to some extent.
Caveat: the only exception is that, as with everything else, the government will step in if anything you do is motivated by race (or, to a lesser extent, gender). So, for example, selling computers for $1500 to whites but $2000 to blacks is illegal as a violation of equal protection law, just like you can’t decide to sell or not sell based on race.
I don’t understand the problem. If Europeans are doing their homework then nobody buys overpriced items and EuroDell (or whatever it’s called) goes out of business. They’re just making it easier for other companies to compete with them.
I think the thing here is that you (and Anders even moreso) have this sort of socialist idea in your head that producers have to work for the overall good and well-being of consumers.
Not really; I’m just unsure if “you live in the UK, you live in the US” is a legal (or ethical, for that matter) price discriminator. Would it be legal to charge the residents of AZ double the price of the residents of CA on your mail order website? Probably, but I’m not sure there’s anything established on this. I do know there’s plenty of customer behavior-based differential pricing practicies which are widely accepted, but geography still pisses people off.
I don’t think Denny’s example quite covers it; for one thing, the manufacturer isn’t dictating wildly different prices to dealers based strictly on geographical location to my knowledge. For another, for some reason car sales are the one place that our society lets you commit any evil you want, so it’s probably not a good example.
Additionally, here’s one: let’s say a Seattle retail shop checks your driver’s license and charges you twice as much if you’re a CA resident. What do you think the reaction would be?
Europeans are doing their homework then nobody buys overpriced items and EuroDell (or whatever it’s called) goes out of business.
Information search costs aren’t zero.
Off the top of my head, they’re probably charging more in the UK because they probably don’t have our level of cutthroat PC competition there. It’s probably legal, but it’s sure as fuck not fair. And free market outcomes that most people think are wildly unfair have a nasty tendency to get outlawed.
