Consumers should vote with their dollars, not write poorly researched hatchet pieces and blather endlessly on the internet. I’d have more sympathy if we were talking about a scam targeting the elderly in Britain were being bamboozled by slick Dell salesmen making cold calls. “Oh no, miss Havisham, this price is half what anyone else this side of the Thames would ask! You wouldn’t want to miss out on a deal like that, would you?”
Take you money to a competitor and give it a rest.
While the original article is a bit over the top, the facts are not, and isn’t it a positive thing with consumers working together to keep informed on prices and overall the conduct of companies, so that they can make educated choices in the matter?
Were these prices a secret? “Yes, maam, we can sell you that LCD today at an undisclosed price. Your credit card, if you will”. The problem is the article makes no attempt to understand the price disparity. Oh no, that kind of research would have cut into the room for the rant about how evil big American corperations are. This is probably just sour grapes over the whole Iraq thing anyway, Yankee bastards!
No, they weren’t secret, which is why our fellow consumers and consumer-serving organisations can enlighten us to these facts. Everyone researching it individually would be an enormous waste of time, after all.
Pepsi 24 packs are only $4.99 at the ghetto BP station by my house.
Just thought you should all know, so if you pay more, you are getting screwed by the man.
Chet
Well, Anders, I suspect that even bringing this subject up is somehow UN-AMERICAN! I may be a traitor to the Capitalist system! (On the other hand, how many people here use Fat Wallet, Froogle, Pricewatch and so on? Hypocrites!)
How is it screwing anyone? Is Mercedes screwing you because you can’t afford an SL? That’s silly.
I wish that damn Alienware wasn’t screwing me over by offering more than a $499 Dell does.[/quote]
What’s Dell’s premium service here? Tech support, near as I can tell, for a 77% markup.
Let’s look at their comparison a bit more:
Dell UltraSharp 2001FP
AU $1,272.93 (AUD $1,765.50)
UK $1,482.56 (£834.25)
DE $1,581.73 (EUR 1,321.24)
US $839.96
LG Flatron L2010P
UK $1,774.89 (£999)
US $1,399.99 (BestBuy.com)
So why are they singling Dell out? Hell, the BestBuy.com price on the LG is one of the more expensive places I found with Froogle. I could get the LG for $1,099.83 if I really wanted to.
And while they’re at it, why don’t they take a dig at UK’s own?
Land Rover Freelander SE
UK $34,422.81 (£19395)
US $25,995
If it’s the price of monitors in the UK is so out of line, why hasn’t someone started buying monitors in the US and selling them in the UK? (Besides differing standards)
[size=2]Currency conversions per xe.com at the time of this writing.[/size]
differing standards?
I’m not an expert on European consumer electronics, but I know, if nothing else, they use a different power plug and voltage (or is it amps or watts or something?). Although for a $642.60 USD profit on each LCD you buy in the US and sell in the UK, I think there’d be someway around that.
Anders- Yes, competition is the “solution” to this “problem”. I know that scares you for whatever reason, but it’s the truth.
A price can always be cut, and you don’t know the first thing about Dell’s internal structure, their costs, whatever.
How left-wing are you to use that bankruptcy argument? Whatever logic you plan to use to explain that exception to Anders’ price cutting vanguard, it’s a planned economy. Whenever you suggest that someone besides producers and consumers should set prices, that’s a planned economy.
Midnight- Christ, you’ve set new standards for your own stupidity. Hypocrites? I don’t know if it’s you not knowing the definition of “hypocrite” or some fundamental misunderstanding of the issue and arguments, but that doesn’t make any sense.
Jason- And whether you think that is worth it is a decision that everyone is capable of making, yes?
Ben, I’m trying to approach your stupidity. I’m sure if I work very hard I’ll get there. Anyway, it seems all the jingoes are workin’ hard today.
When have I said anything about anyone but the producer and consumer deciding the price? I’ve said that if there exists a price disparity, then that should be made known to all consumers, so that their choice can be an educated one when doing their purchase.
The problem I see with a purely competition-based lowering of prices is that with such a high-cost business as the computer ones, a profit-driven company isn’t likely to be keen on it, relying instead on the psychological effect of marginal lowering of prices, with a prompt reset to previous profit margin with the roll-out of the new model.