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I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

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Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#111

Post by giaour »

stavros wrote: post #36
lordnacho wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME this is one of the most common economic misconceptions that people have, to think that the economic cost of a tax is borne by whoever nominally pays it. Most people with no economics background will for example think that it's just companies that pay salary related taxes, or consumers who pay VAT. Those are both true in the accounting sense that the money is paid by those respective parties to the government but…

My dad had the same reaction when I told him that we'd pay the extra credit card fees. He said "the merchant pays those" and didn't seem to get my "where do you think the merchant gets the money from?" reply.

There is a labor cost to accepting cash (or, to a lesser extent, checks) that you don't incur when someone pays with a credit card. I recall reading some dubiously sourced research claiming that it costs most businesses more to accept cash than it does to take a credit card[0], which didn't seem that plausible, but it's probably closer to a wash than you would think.

[0]: I think it was this: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180130005244/en/New...

Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#112

Post by cesarb »

giaour wrote: post #111
stavros wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad had the same reaction when I told him that we'd pay the extra credit card fees. He said "the merchant pays those" and didn't seem to get my "where do you think the merchant gets the money from?" reply.

There is a labor cost to accepting cash (or, to a lesser extent, checks) that you don't incur when someone pays with a credit card. I recall reading some dubiously sourced research claiming that it costs most businesses more to accept cash than it does to take a credit card[0], which didn't seem that plausible, but it's probably closer to a wash than you would think. [0]: I think it was this: https://www.businesswire…

I have seen this argument a lot, but whenever I see a separate price for paying with cash versus paying with credit cards, the price for paying with cash is always lower.

Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#113

Post by balabaster »

wtmt wrote: post #13

A few comments on this from an Indian perspective. Apple products are quite expensive here too, when compared against U.S. prices (plus sales tax). It may seem as if this is because of customs duties, but that’s not the entire story. Many companies tend to have geographically differentiated pricing to expand their market and make more money. Even if the prices aren’t completely matching the local currency equivalent…

I just had that request from my girlfriend in the Netherlands to bring back an iPad mini in this trip because they're $100 less for the 256GB model here in Canada than they work out to in the Netherlands once exchange rates and taxes are considered.

Living close to the U.S. border, it's quite easy for me to do a 24-48 hour jaunt down to the U.S. - long enough to qualify for the customs exemptions and bring cheap electronics back to Canada. The only down side is that if anything goes wrong with them, I have to cross the border back to the U.S. to deal with warranty issues.

Having an address in the Netherlands and parents in the UK also means that I have similar benefits in the opposite direction, sometimes stuff is way cheaper in the UK or Europe and if I need it I just pick it up there when I'm there. The down side there being that they're obviously cabled for European or UK plugs which means I either need to replace the cables or, thankfully, most stuff is rechargeable via USB-C now, so all I need are European, British and American USB-C charging units and everything carries on as normal.

Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#115

Post by giaour »

cesarb wrote: post #112
giaour wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a labor cost to accepting cash (or, to a lesser extent, checks) that you don't incur when someone pays with a credit card. I recall reading some dubiously sourced research claiming that it costs most businesses more to accept cash than it does to take a credit card[0], which didn't seem that plausible, but it's probably closer to a wash than you would think. [0]: I think it was this: https://www.businesswire…

I have seen this argument a lot, but whenever I see a separate price for paying with cash versus paying with credit cards, the price for paying with cash is always lower.

True, but the merchants with separate prices tend to be smaller organizations, since they need to fly under credit card processors' radar to do this. For a mom and pop shop, they may be willing to do the extra labor to make back the 3%, even if it's not something that would make economic sense to pay an employee to do. (Similar to how it's cheaper for you to mow your own lawn on the weekends, even if the money you save is less than your hourly wage at work.) Or they may view labor as a sunk cost and see cash handling duties as a way to decrease idle time for staff.

Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#116

Post by yardie »

FabHK wrote: post #91
Bilal_io wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new iphone SE starts at $429.00

Not in India, that's the point: https://www.apple.com/in/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se/ It is INR 43900, or around USD 570. ETA: In Brazil, it is BRL 4199 or USD 825. https://www.apple.com/br/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se/ And that's at market exchange rates. Adjusted for purchasing power or wages it would be even more expensive, I assume.

Does Brazil still have a 100% tariffs on foreign made electronics? And the US charges almost none to highly favoured nations ie. China. So $429 iPhone in the US will be over $800 after duties in Brazil. And this is not set by Apple but the Brazilian authorities.

Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#117

Post by Mikeb85 »

Countries like India and Brazil are so stratified in terms of wealth that you essentially have people who have no chance of affording it, ever, and people with the same or more disposable income as those in the west. So the strategy is to simply get as much as possible out of the 'rich' people who will buy it as a status symbol.

Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#118

Post by droopyEyelids »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #53

Ah! Today morning, I woke up to the news of the new Apple products everywhere including Hackernews. As usual, for the kicks, I tried customizing the total spec-out version of the Apple Mac Studio. This is costlier than most typical cars on Indian roads. And the Mac Studio cost do not include the keyboard, mouse, and monitor which is needed to make it the bare minimum usable computer. https://twitter.com/brajeshwar/st…

Its more expensive than many cars on the road in the USA!

“25% of cars on the road are are at least 16 years old”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/25percent-of-cars-in-us-are-...

A 16 year old car that people drive not usually worth $10k.

Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#119

Post by lotsofpulp »

MthN wrote: post #79
wtmt wrote: post #13

A few comments on this from an Indian perspective. Apple products are quite expensive here too, when compared against U.S. prices (plus sales tax). It may seem as if this is because of customs duties, but that’s not the entire story. Many companies tend to have geographically differentiated pricing to expand their market and make more money. Even if the prices aren’t completely matching the local currency equivalent…

cost from apple.com/uk/in/us store macbook air US - $999 India - ₹92,900 ≅ $1,213 India(without GST) = ₹78,728 ≅ $1027 UK - £999 ≅ $1316 UK(without VAT) - £832.5 ≅ $1,096 iPhone 13 US - $799 India - ₹79,900 ≅ $1,043 India(without GST) - ₹67,711 ≅ $884 UK - £779 ≅ $1,025 UK(without VAT) - £649 ≅ $854

Most places in the US will have an additional ~7%+ sales tax on top of the above quoted prices.

Re: I live in the country with the most expensive Apple products on the planet

#120

Post by plorkyeran »

wil421 wrote: post #103
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way houses in the US are sold looks insane from outside. When I last sold a house in the UK I paid the estate agent 1.5%, there were no buyers fees.

OP is full or crap or misinformed. Buyers almost never pay any fees for realtors in my area of the US. Unless the seller is trying to rip you off or something. Maybe it’s different on the west coast. Everyone I know who has bought a house (not selling) has the seller pay the commission. I bought a house 2 years ago and the seller didn’t have a realtor, he paid 3% to my realtor. It’s baked into the price, you don’t pa…

Where you do think the money for the commission comes from? Houses aren't a fixed-price good where you declare that you're selling a house for $500k and stick exactly to that price regardless of what you're offered. If a buyer without an agent to pay offers you $490k, that's a better offer than one with an agent offering you $500k if it means you don't have to pay that 3%, and the buyer has saved $10k by not having an agent.
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