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Price gouging ??? Or is it ?


tuko

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This week I on was Bearmach.com and decided to place an order for a pair of wing top protectors. Ok it was after work so at 2 in the morning I did choose the wrong country but it was unknown to me at the time and the order went through like usual. The following day I was contacted by Bearmach to confirm my address which I did promptly. A bit later the order was cancelled by them and they instructed me to use the Swedish flag to place the order again....a bit long l know but I'm getting to the point soon..... So again back on bearmach.com and using the correct country flag I searched and found the wing top protectors this time showing the price is Sk. The price was 632:-, I decided to use an exchange converter on the internet to see if that figure was the same as the previous £43.99....... NOT, it was a stagering £55.20 for the same product. Figuring that I must have done something wrong again, I fired off another email to bearmach, to which I got a reply "there is a different pricing structure for each country, this is why you will see a difference in price depending on where you are" .....WTF!! 🤬🤬🤬🤬

Is it normal practice to screw customers now with this nonsense of you live in another country, therefore we have a pricing structure to get as much as we can from you? Why should I be paying more than the next enthusiast who owns and maintains their Land Rover theirself? This is the first time I've seen this happen to me, has it happened to others, is this the way bearmach does business now, penalize customers for placing export ordered? I just don't get it, I pay the taxes, pay the shipping cost, why the 20% hike because I live over here?

 

Todd.

 

 

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Monopoly...... ?Cartel.....?

Possibly  Bearmach have an agreement  with their distributors not to under cut them with direct sales so that the distrubutors  in the country can continue with their satisfactory margin.  Companies that operate in France and the UK  have refused to let me purchase goods in the UK for export to France.( I am resident in France  and the UK price was significantly cheaper).

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20% isn't unusual and just reflects the additional cost of being in business in these other countries. The UK is actually a very cheap country to run a business from and generally speaking you pay most of the governments requirements ('tax' or whatever) after the event if and when you make a profit at the end of the year.... In  other countries it is normal to have some fixed monthly costs which have to be met up front. Your solution is a Bearmach retailer in the UK (Paddocks?) who will send overseas. I am sure @taurion has discovered that when shopping for Landy stuff it is generally cheaper and quicker to order from the UK. The problem in France is that LR's are thinner on the ground and it is a much bigger country, few resellers keep much stock and they have their fixed costs. In Sweden the ratio of LR's may well be higher but the overall market size is small, so again less stock on the ground, fewer options and higher import costs.

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There are all kind of reasons why this is the case, and Tax may be the main reason. I know that in Holland everything car related is way more expensive than it is over here. The pricing policies of car manufacturers is even more weird; I mean the price of a landrover registered on the road is about 200% that of it leaving the factory. As a result of this, Land rover lowers the price pre-tax, so the on the road price doesn't get so ridiculous. This were the return import of cars comes from; you ship a RHD to holland, than ship it back to the UK and sell it cheaper. 

I can imagine parts having similar issues. This thing really frustrates me, because is this why we have the EU? It should not matter were we buy it,as we should be in the same europe? Big hordes of dutch people go filling up the car in Germany cause it is cheaper, so now the country has variable duty rates on fuel, so the fuel stations near the borders don't go out of business. It is just bend as you like. 

Just hope leaving the EU won't hurt the economy of the UK too much.

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Yes the item is the unpainted wing top protectors.

Screenshot_20201113-013603.thumb.jpg.5be9468e7c0ac815e77912394039dd56.jpg

Screenshot_20201113-013625.thumb.jpg.ed8c92dd1163002bb3c6cc5c18b31ef6.jpg

Screenshot_20201113-013719.thumb.jpg.a59325fb2d3673b2e14763733cbc8fb8.jpg 

the price shows with taxes, and of course at check out there is tax on taxes. I have no issues with taxes, its life! 

But what I have a hard time getting to grip with is that there are different prices for the same product being bought and shipped from the same place. Like I said taxes and even shipping is ok, the fact of different prices for the same product being order from the very same location is no acceptable to me. It nice to see that I'm not the only one who has noticed this and not impressed. Also I should add that we no longer have an official distributor in Sweden therefore all my orders are placed in the UK. 

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I see this in the B2B world too, where a piece of lab equipment can be more like 50% more expensive between Austria and Switzerland. (My Swiss friend knew someone in Austria who was able to buy it locally and then just ship it to him.) I agree with tuko. The justification is unjustifiable. Before I boycotted Amazon I sometimes bought things from Amazon.com if they were cheaper than .co.uk. And I’m happy to buy from private sellers on eBay in Europe, and pick up large items myself (a set of third row seats from a Def110 from Northern Germany for example. I probably spent £150 getting there and back but saved three times that amount over an identical item in the UK, where it’s more of a seller’s market. It feels good to win, but lousy when you can’t beat the system. 

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Basically, to me, it is greed from the sellers to have different prices for different destinations..

They just try to see what they get away with..

VAT = VAT, regardless where in the EU it is sold to (could / will change 1/1/2021 so that is 20 % in the UK

Shipping, obviously, will vary to where it is to go.

We buy everywhere in the EU as prices in FR are even worse...

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2 hours ago, western said:

Todd, I have a as new unfitted pair in my garage I was given them but you will need to source some fixings, I can take some photo's & email them so you can see what the protectors are like.

Ralph,

I'll pm you after work. Thanks mate. 

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