Stumbling Toward 'Awesomeness'

I grew up in the US though I now live in Europe. This is just a short post about something that I find really unfair and frustrating: International Pricing of High End Tech Items. Let’s check out the new Nikon D700:

Nikon d700 Germany: 2,599 eur

Nikon d700 United States: 2,999 usd – 1,825 eur

Nikon d200 Britain 1892 pounds – 2,383 eur

It certainly would seem that Germany is getting the short end of that stick. In many cases, people in Europe could fly to the US, buy electronics, and come back for the price of getting them here. And many people do.

Not to menaion many companies have better warranties in the US where the market is more competitive. (Example: Many Nikon cameras and lenses have a 5 year warranty in the US and 2 year here in Germany)

When the Wii came out int he US, it was 250usd, when it came out here, it was 250eur. The eur was riding high, in the US it was impossible to get a Wii, hwever, they were readily available in all stores here; leading many to speculate that it was because Nintendo was making 400usd per Wii (250eur) in Europe. This isn’t just about inflation, some items are priced 1:1 or a little over, 3dsMax below, but others are more ridiculous, Photoshop for example.

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3dsMax 2009

3dsMax 2009 Germany: 3,900 eur – (4,641 eur with mandatory tax)

3dsMax 2009 United States: 3,495 usd – 2,257 eur

Photoshop CS3

Photoshop CS3 Germany: 1,027 eur

Photoshop CS3 United States: 607 usd – 390 eur

Photoshop CS3 Britain: 500 pounds – 629 eur

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The above is just completely inane. Some companies will tell you they have to charge a premium on products in Europe because it costs extra to localize them. But come on.. Stuff like the above is ridiculous.

When you start looking at really high end tech, items that only have one distributor in Europe, but many in the US; like motion capture systems, the difference in pricing due to 1) inflation 2) companies just charging more in europe and 3) single distributors in a region having no competition, makes it inhibitively expensive (we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars price difference). It would be cheaper to set up a company in the US just to make these purchases, and I am sure people do.

But seriously, Adobe, you should be ashamed of yourselves.