Outrageous mark-ups – does tablet memory top the table?

Presumably games consoles are like printers – it’s what you need to spend in games and ink that make the profit. Your same source gave the cost of building an iPad Air as $274 against a selling price of $499 – little scope for after sales profits here perhaps. However, a large investment in development goes into these sorts of products, together with heavy marketing costs, so there is a gamble if you get it wrong.

This is often the case, but for a true comparison you need to remove UK VAT from a UK price by dividing it by 1.20. Only then can you compare it with US prices which always exclude sales tax. Even when comparing pre-tax prices, I agree there is often an unreasonable disparity.

For those who don’t have unlimited (or very generous) data plans, however, a simple answer is to look for products which can take a microSD card.

A very nice idea, but firms like Apple have always been going for hype and exclusivity – heaven knows how much the Apple Watch in gold will cost (starting price for the basic watch said to be US$ 350, so we can probably expect to pay 300 to 350 pounds here!) – and that type of firm is looking to the better off end of society to buy their gear.

(Sadly many in the media are users, so there’s also a load of free publicity given to Apple, etc. How many times do you hear people on radio mention the ‘iPod’, ‘iPhone’ or ‘iPad’, rather than ‘music player’, ‘mobile’ or ‘tablet’?)

Many of these devices (the top end smartphones, for example) are sealed so there’s built in death when the battery can no longer be charged. It’s in by design people, and sadly, so many people ‘love’ the products they blindly buy and buy again a few years later.

Good point, well made. It annoys me when (usually American) adverts say XYZ Free (a value of $xyz) when it’s really just THEIR price, not MY value.

I look at a product / service at face value – if I am willing to pay that price I will, and whether it costs them a lot or a little it’s mostly what I am willing to pay that is the deciding factor.

US list price according to Ebay seller is US $489

If you look at Amazon they say the price is:
List Price: $765.00
Price: $299.00 & FREE Shipping. Details
Because our price on this item is lower than the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, the manufacturer does not allow us to show you our price until you place the item in your shopping cart.

Which tends to make me believe that you cannot believe everything you read. The main competitor for the Bosch is the DeWalt DW745 and there again the Amazon price as to RRP has the same huge discrepancy. Currently it has Bosch and DeWalt by the wotsits trying to keep market share.

Ultimately Amazon* will be able to drive out of business shop based competitors because it has much bigger bulk buying power and hugely lower overheads in terms of shops. And of course in the UK pays virtually no tax. Once local shops/DIY stores have been obliterated then it will charge to make the most profit from us.

Being a manufacturer is not necessarily an easy thing if you cannot make adequate profits. And the US is an object lesson on mispricing and predatory pricing.

*The UK’s number one tax avoider is Amazon. Amazon’s UK subsidiary paid £3.2m in corporate taxes in 2012 on sales of £4.3bn – a rate of less than 0.1%. In 2011 Amazon’s sales in the UK were £2.9 billion but they only paid £1.8 million in corporation tax.
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/boycottamazon.aspx

Actually, no, it should perhaps have been about not including the ability to read from a slide-in memory card (just as ‘wavechange’ posted after you – had not seen that when I posted my, similar, comment).

There was an article I read somewhere that a tube of toothpaste cost about 50p in a country in S America, but £2 in France. What we need to do, if we hate high prices, is to boycott products until the price goes lower.

Unfortunately, for every person that buys “own brand” products at the supermarket, someone else buys soups, beans, toilet paper, etc, etc (and in the entertainment world, someone will pay hundreds for a seat at a gig, or for a football season ticket, and the ticket touts can charge what they like, and someone will pay that rip-off price), so the “boycott for lower prices” idea doesn’t work, making it a divide of those who can, and those who cannot, afford these products / services…

(oh, and yes, it’s a shame that some are so keen they queue round the block to be able to get some gizmo the first day it is available… sad, and with lots of spare cash, I have to assume.)