11–20 of 259 posts
From Europe it is often still cheaper to fly to a different country to buy clothes, electronics, etc. Problem is that you still have to pay the import tax once you cross the border back into your own country.
Hence why many airline crew ran (run?) side hustles of buying and selling luxury goods, since they were (are?) rarely checked at the border of their home country.
In the case of the iPhone you might need to find a cheap flight to the US, but a Macbook will land you a couple days in Disney.
Years ago I remember that I wanted to buy one of those Rock Band sets for Playstation that came with the whole band. But they were so expensive back in Brazil, that I did the math and it was the same price to fly to Miami, book a hotel for the weekend, buy the set, and come back.
If people were willing and able to fly, the free market would close this arbitrage by ... driving up the cost of flying to Dubai. The other prices are controlled.
people flying to dubai on different days across different flights to buy a couple iphones for themselves, or even as speculators, would not make a big enough dent
Apple will more likely correct the pricing discrepancy to sell more iphones in India themselves
Getting caught for breaking the law is a stochastic system, but the expected value is lower than most people think.
Edit: How far are people willing to take this? Should we share an article saying someone got a free iPhone by buying a machine gun and stealing a truck full of iPhones? Where is the efficient frontier of breaking the law vs cheaper goods?
Thank God I quit smoking in 1980.
A pack of cigarettes in New York costs about $15, in some stores, and no less than $10, outside of the local Native American facilities/reservations.
That's almost all taxes.
It’s seems unlikely but I wouldn’t put it past Apple.
OTOH I don’t mind these high taxes, for a country like India an iPhone is indeed a luxury, if only the tax money didn’t go directly to party funds and offshore accounts one way or the other.
https://twitter.com/scarysouthpaw/status/1318517195064791044
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/nothing-to-decla...
> However, despite the sky-rocketing prices, iPhone still sells best in India and the buyers give whatever price Apple asks them to pay. So for a business, that is not a bad deal at all.
Not really a good deal for Apple. More like an amazing deal for the Indian government.