Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopardalis
The $1000 is pretty generous... back in the UK, it's about $30 (from outside the EU) before it attracts the equivalent of GST, at a 20% rate :eye pop:
It's a different market, as I'm finding  a few things I've looked at I've wondered if the prices are high because there's no or little competition, it can't be because it costs more to ship from China to Australia than to Europe  |
It's a part of life over here unfortunately and in many countries there is no "send as a gift" option so basically my kids grandparents in Australia cannot send Christmas or Birthday presents over without it attracting VAT, I'm not sure how it is here in Spain yet but in Belgium they just made the values up to begin with so you would pay more to get the gifts than they were worth.
At the moment though we got a good relocation package that means any goods we buy inside of Spain we will be refunded the 21% VAT back but even then it is probably still cheaper to order a scope from the US.
Then again 21% off of a new car is quite substantial.
I don't think it's lack of retail competition regarding astro gear though as much as lack of distributor competition.