Why are UK prices so expensive!?

[Skye]

I was just wondering, are there any reasons why we cant / dont buy car kits from overseas?

And also, why are we paying so much more than other countries in the first place?

For example....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kyosho-30079...item4aa6528f6a

This is a seller on eBay based in St Louis, USA. The car in question is the Kyosho FS2, so Japanese and would have had to be shipped there just as they have to be shipped here. It is brand new and is being sold by a business, as opposed to someone selling privately.

The price is $424.87 which converts to £257.48.

Add on the shipping to the Uk ($61.30 or £37.15) and the total price is £294.63

So the total saving is £50. Not enough to retire on but £50 is not to be sniffed at....

So, I was just wondering two things.....

A, Why isnt everyone buying their kits from overseas? Are the extra hidden costs that have to be applied?

and

B, Why are our prices so much more in the first place. Ignoring the shipping fees, our kit price on this example is £100 more expensive!!

Now I am all for supporting local business and the UK economy. I have never bought anything from overseas and am unlikely to do so.

However, I still feel that these are points worth consideration...

[footey]

if you buy from abroad you can get hit with INPORT tax which can be quiet expensive

[Skye]

Would that apply when purchasing from a seller on eBay, as opposed to buying from a manufacturer where you are the first importer?

If so, then it would explain why people are not buying from overseas all the time.

But the other question would remain, why are our prices so much higher in the first place?

If the car in question was an AE or Losi I would get it. But its Japanese......

[Naushad]

cos our vat is stupidly high...that's one thing!

[peetbee]

This has been covered in the past, but I can't find the old topic!

It roughly boils down to:
1) VAT gets applied in the UK
2) Import duties - gets applied to everything over approx £15 value regardless of how you bought it
3) UK distributors having to cover their costs - this can be advertising, sponsoring drivers, paying 1 & 2, replacing faulty/missing items, etc, etc
4) shipping costs

plus probably other costs too

[bodgit]

Type import in search then read all the old posts.

[Skye]

Originally Posted by peetbee

This has been covered in the past, but I can't find the old topic!

It roughly boils down to:
1) VAT gets applied in the UK
2) Import duties - gets applied to everything over approx £15 value regardless of how you bought it
3) UK distributors having to cover their costs - this can be advertising, sponsoring drivers, paying 1 & 2, replacing faulty/missing items, etc, etc
4) shipping costs

plus probably other costs too

But surely the USA has all these same costs with the only one perhaps being significantly different from ours being the level of the tax enquivalent to our VAT.

This isnt a UK retail bashing session, I think the vast majority of RC sellers we have in the UK are fantastic.

But it is aimed at bashing the system (by system I mean those who set the rules, not the sellers) a bit as I am yet to see a valid reason why we would have to pay £100 more for an identical kit than what they pay in the USA?

For the record, there is one particular UK based retailer who will be getting the sale for my next purchase as the level of customer service offered is out of the ordinary and so they deserve my support, even if it does leave me out of pocket by comparison.

So this is definately not an attack on our guys who do a great job, just me having a moan that we are once again getting screwed over by those in power, and looking for answers to justify it. As yet, I havent seen an explanation which suitably justifies the £100 price difference between UK and USA....

[Skye]

Thanks Bodgit, that confirms why people are not buying all their cars off ebay and shipping them over.

It doesnt explain why we are paying so much here in the UK though in the first place....

[tellor]

To give any correct anwer SKYE you will need to be financially aware of all the relevant countries VAT, TAX, NI, wages, inport export costs, GDP etc etc etc shall i go on

Lets just say it just as expensive over there as it is here, it's just that you don't live there, get paid by them and pay their bills.

If you want to buy overseas do it, take the risk, enjoying paying the postman COD and saving your tenner then regret it coz something is missing/broke and you have to send it back and it gets lost

Sometimes it's worth it, and the one time is isn't it's EXPENSIVE

[MK Racing]

The larger shops in the US by direct, the UK shops have to by from a distributor, that distributor has to make a profit plus cover shipping costs & import duty, then UK shops have to add a magin & 20% vat, most US shop prices don't include sales tax as can be differant state to state.......

Most shops in the UK discount the kits by 5-10% from list & offer free delivery, you would be shocked how little profit there is in kits....

[peetbee]

Originally Posted by Skye

But surely the USA has all these same costs with the only one perhaps being significantly different from ours being the level of the tax enquivalent to our VAT.

They may have the same costs but they may not be at the same level as that imposed by the UK government
Also, are you comparing a 'bricks and mortar' store against an internet store price?

[Skye]

Originally Posted by tellor

To give any correct anwer SKYE you will need to be financially aware of all the relevant countries VAT, TAX, NI, wages, inport export costs, GDP etc etc etc shall i go on

Lets just say it just as expensive over there as it is here, it's just that you don't live there, get paid by them and pay their bills.

If you want to buy overseas do it, take the risk, enjoying paying the postman COD and saving your tenner then regret it coz something is missing/broke and you have to send it back and it gets lost

Sometimes it's worth it, and the one time is isn't it's EXPENSIVE

You make many good points tellor. As I have previously said though, I was never actually looking to purchase from overseas. This whole thread came about by accident. I put ebay.com instead of ebay.co.uk and found myself looking at all these US postings I wasnt expecting.

Originally Posted by MarcKnight

The larger shops in the US by direct, the UK shops have to by from a distributor, that distributor has to make a profit plus cover shipping costs & import duty, then UK shops have to add a magin & 20% vat, most US shop prices don't include sales tax as can be differant state to state.......

Most shops in the UK discount the kits by 5-10% from list & offer free delivery, you would be shocked how little profit there is in kits....

This is all I need to know really, I work in B2B sales so know all about the middle man and everyone having to add their margin to make it pay. I have to admit to not thinking about the fact that you guys are buying your kits through distributors, but in light of this then there are no further questions your honour....

Originally Posted by peetbee

They may have the same costs but they may not be at the same level as that imposed by the UK government
Also, are you comparing a 'bricks and mortar' store against an internet store price?

Another valid point, and one I dont know the answer to.....

I think its fair to say we have this nailed down now and I get it. Thanks for all the replies!

[rondoolaa]

thats rip off britain for you, i dont think its the shops faults, its the governments, taxing the items imported to the shop owners, then wanting a percentage of the price items sell for in store,

even parts can be a lot dearer,

i do try to support my local shop and buy some bits most race nights, but when you have an alloy item that is £55 and i can get the same item from hongkong for £15 with postage included i know where i will get it,

in fact i've purchased 10 for the price of 3

[Tom3012]

Same with every singe item under the sun though, not just RC stuff

[jukeboxman]

One of the biggest excuses / reasons why stuff is cheaper stateside is the sheer size of their potential market - our population is a mere 62.5 million to America's 312 million, if the same percentage of people are modellers who do you think can demand and achieve better prices form manufacturers? Works the same way here, where supermarkets can buy in such vast quantities over independent shops - they tell the manufacturers how much they will pay for an item, not ask how much it is...

Buying direct from the far east is one thing, most of the stuff is made there, buying from the US means you're picking an item that has been shipped in serious bulk numbers compared to the relative few that are shipped here. Then you stick on import duty, VAT, middleman costings etc and suddenly it becomes very expensive.

[berry50]

I bought 2 x Associated SC10 FT kits, 1 x Futaba 4PL, 1 x Associated Allen Key Tool Set and 2 x Castle SCT systems from Tower Hobbies. With postage, import duty and Parcel Farce's £13 fee i saved just over £500 from buying in the UK. I did have a bad Castle esc which took 10 days to send back AND receive another one from Castle. I'm all for supporting local/UK shops, but money is money, and if i can save £500 then i'm afraid i will.

[mattybucks]

Originally Posted by berry50

I bought 2 x Associated SC10 FT kits, 1 x Futaba 4PL, 1 x Associated Allen Key Tool Set and 2 x Castle SCT systems from Tower Hobbies. With postage, import duty and Parcel Farce's £13 fee i saved just over £500 from buying in the UK. I did have a bad Castle esc which took 10 days to send back AND receive another one from Castle. I'm all for supporting local/UK shops, but money is money, and if i can save £500 then i'm afraid i will.

The problem you have with buying from abroad is eventually all the uk model shops will close, or not stock products the people often buy from abroad. Then one midweek meeting (usually a friday) before a big meeting you'll break the car, not have a part, and not be able to fix you car in time for the big meeting.

[berry50]

Originally Posted by mattybucks

Then one midweek meeting (usually a friday) before a big meeting you'll break the car, not have a part, and not be able to fix you car in time for the big meeting.

Not if you order a load of spares too with all the money that you've saved from buying abroad in the first place. I'm not saying it's good for UK shops. But there are some BIG saving to be made. Some stuff isn't any cheaper when you take into account import etc. But, prices are usually the same in $ as they are in £. And with Tower Hobbies discount code you can save more too. I saved an additional $250 off my order from them.

[racingdwarf]

All of this thred is true, nothing new, stuff has always been cheeper in the states, my dad used to bring loads of AE and novak stuff back for us kids,and yokomo stuff from japan most of which we couldn't get here for at least another couple of months, just these nasty computer things and the interweb has made the world so mutch smaller! we can now sit in our living room and look in shops all around the world for our parts & compair prices.in about 10min and then order without, speaking to a sole,not even pick up a phone or try and work out a time zone and pay without even reaching for our wallet and then it will most likley turn up in under a week
Try earning a decent living in the uk from r/c cars, TBH I don't know how people do!! rc is cheep realy look at what we will pay for mass produced crap like TV's,computers,sterios, fridges, designer clothes etc that are made to last no longer than a few years.This mass produced laptop I'm using now cost more than a durango 408,I wonder how many laptops HP sell compaired to durango 408's?

Way thing are going we may well end up having to go abroad for our stuff as you simply will be unable to get it here.

Try and support your LHS as mutch a poss, as if not they will go, poss soon followed by the local club and then our hobby

I agree, competative rc is costly, I can't afford everything I want,It's not to expencive...I just can't afford it on my budget.

[Si Coe]

Too true that its not just RC's.

Once (when we had a car industry) it was possible to buy a Rover in Holland and import it back to the UK for less than it cost to buy the same car in Birmingham just yards from the factory - except of course that Rover would never supply the Dutch dealers with RHD cars......

I have to admit I still can't fathom how other countries manage to run their state with lower taxes, lower prices and no obvious drop in the level of service. OK, some places don't quite have a National Health Service, but the cost of health insurance is less than the reduction in taxes over the UK, so they are still quids in.