Can you see a reference to them charging VAT? If not, that's pretty ludicrous.
If you go through the business sign up flow you can see they are charging 20% VAT.
Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
11–20 of 143 posts
Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#12> I guess we should thank apple for not allowing different pricing in different regions.
Apple lets me pay 699 Euro (http://store.apple.com/de/buy-iphone/iphone5s) in Germany vs 649$ (http://store.apple.com/us/buy-iphone/iphone5s) in the US.
Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#13http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro vs. http://store.apple.com/de/buy-mac/macbook-pro Same concept. You can't have the price of good fluctuating all the time in Europe because the relationship between the dollar and euro have changed. They fix the price, it accounts for VAT and sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
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Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#14http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro vs. http://store.apple.com/de/buy-mac/macbook-pro Same concept. You can't have the price of good fluctuating all the time in Europe because the relationship between the dollar and euro have changed. They fix the price, it accounts for VAT and sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
No its not. One does not include VAT, other does.
In Dropbox example both include VAT. You can see this tendency clearly in digital games. When I worked with games pricing for MacOS, I asked why such a huge difference? Boss replied: "It is the easiest to force Europeans into premium costs".
There is even a chrome extension which shows how much a game costs in different countries on Steam website:
Buy Sid Meier's Civilization V
US: $29.99 (18.04 GBP)
RU: 249 pуб. (4.01 GBP) (78% )
CIS: $14.99 USD (9.02 GBP) (50% )
BR: R$ 44,99 (12.11 GBP) (33% )
UK: £19.99 (11% )
EU: 29,99€ (23.7 GBP) (31% )
AU: $69.99 USD (42.11 GBP) (133% )
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Also not long time ago there was an article about Spotify pricing [1]. It simply is a many years ongoing Europe rip-off.
Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#15http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro vs. http://store.apple.com/de/buy-mac/macbook-pro Same concept. You can't have the price of good fluctuating all the time in Europe because the relationship between the dollar and euro have changed. They fix the price, it accounts for VAT and sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
All companies of a reasonable size deal with fluctuating exchange rates by hedging on the currency futures market. It's what those markets are for, and it works very well.
Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#16Or it could just be a standard pricing trick where you let the customer think they're getting a great deal by "working the system" when it's actually what you intended them to do all along. Dan Ariely has some good examples of this in his talks/books.
That's a possibility, but it has to be weighed against the ill-will you generate among the customers who realize that they are given/have been paying a higher price.
This article is a perfect example. It certainly doesn't boost my opinion of dropbox.
Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#17> I guess we should thank apple for not allowing different pricing in different regions. Apple lets me pay 699 Euro ( http://store.apple.com/de/buy-iphone/iphone5s ) in Germany vs 649$ ( http://store.apple.com/us/buy-iphone/iphone5s ) in the US.
Just a reminder in this case: EU prices include the VAT (near 20% in many cases), while in the US the state tax (often 10%) is not included in public prices.
Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
My first thought was this as well - we tend to list prices inc VAT in Europe, but it's almost always without in the States, no?
America doesn't have a VAT. Internet services seldom have any tax requirement at all. Laws vary, but the onus is on the customer to pay local and state taxes. There is federal sales tax at all.
My buddy that sold books online had to calculate our own state's sales tax (by county and city! yuck) because he has to report here. But if you were out of state he didn't charge the sales tax. Its a broken system, very weird.
Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#19http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro vs. http://store.apple.com/de/buy-mac/macbook-pro Same concept. You can't have the price of good fluctuating all the time in Europe because the relationship between the dollar and euro have changed. They fix the price, it accounts for VAT and sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
> They fix the price, it accounts for VAT and sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
Never seen less, always seen more. Significantly more. Take the top-of-the-line MBP without options, 2500€ is $3286, the german VAT is 19%. So a VAT-including US price would be $2975. There's a 10% ($311) surcharge for living in Germany.
Re: Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro
#20> I guess we should thank apple for not allowing different pricing in different regions. Apple lets me pay 699 Euro ( http://store.apple.com/de/buy-iphone/iphone5s ) in Germany vs 649$ ( http://store.apple.com/us/buy-iphone/iphone5s ) in the US.
Just a reminder in this case: EU prices include the VAT (near 20% in many cases), while in the US the state tax (often 10%) is not included in public prices.
Except 1 EUR = 1.31 USD right now, so even with a 19% VAT, the EUR value should be lower than USD: $649 + 19% VAT is 588€ not 699. 19% european surcharge on top of the VAT.