Weird pricing of Dropbox Pro

Even for cloud-based services like dropbox, the cost of doing business in all countries is not the same. There are different laws/regulations to deal with, costs for having foreign-language support people, costs for internationalizing parts of the UI/etc.

Personally, I think it's kind of odd to expect that something will cost the exact same amount anywhere in the world.

It might be that the added cost for dropbox to do business in Europe just happens to be very close to the exchange rate, so they just change the currency symbol and call it "close enough".

There are plenty of things that are more expensive in the US than they are in Europe.

> A $300 Wii U in north america costs 300€ in Europe.

Which is exactly the problem considering the Euro is 30% stronger than the dollar right now. It's also wrong, the $300 Wii U[0] is 275€[1], which is roughly correct ($300 + 20% french VAT is 274€)

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-Wii-Mario-Luigi-Deluxe-U/dp/B...

[1] http://www.amazon.fr/Console-Nintendo-noire-Mario-Kart/dp/B0...

> GOG.com sells all their games in north american prices because it only has offices in north america. You are buying a product from north america in that case.

GOG.com sells in local currency.

> For example if you buy a $500 cell phone from north america and have it shipped to Europe. You will pay less for the phone but when it crosses the border you pay considerable taxes such that the "deal" is no longer worth it.

Mobile phones are duty-free under CCT (the common customs tariff), so you only pay the local VAT which is 15~25%. Given the phone is probably marked up 30~40% compared to the US, the deal is most definitely worth it, even paying the VAT.

Yes, kind of, but not really. The problem right now is that €1 is worth $1.3. In Europe VAT is included and is about 20% in most countries (it does vary), in US it's not.

So, a service that costs €1 in Europe, gets the provider €0.8, or $1.05. Import tax is generally the same as VAT as far as I know. Sales tax in the US is usually around 7% -> to a consumer, a $1 service costs $1.07.

This means that if you import a $1 thing from the US to Europe, and don't have to pay shipping, you are saving some 13% of the price as the consumer, and the seller gets 5% less money than the equivalent price in European currency.

That is today. The difference varies, I've seen as high as 1.5 dollar per euro.

This explains why everyone is suddenly asking me to bring them iPads and Macbooks and whatnots because I'm coming back from the US in a month.

I understood his point to be rather the opposite, that the real price (if you had an absolute global unit) of the product in one place does not necessarily correlate to other places. The fact that the numbers he used were both 300 is irrelevant. The point he is making is that the cost in Europe is higher for reasons beyond the physical cost of the product.

No, he's saying what he's saying.

A $1300 Macbook costs £1,000 here in the UK which is roughly 30% more expensive than a direct currency conversion would have you expect. If you take that $1300 Macbook, add 30% and convert that to Euros it just happens to be that it works out at about €1300 which is what they charge in Germany. Someone posted about that here earlier.

Most of that 30% is due to VAT at around 20% for much of Europe, plus another 10%. It's that last 10% that's the real price difference of the goods.

Personally, I think the main cause of that is the generally higher cost of doing business in Europe (UK included). Everything costs more here. Petrol (Gas) and hence transport, wages, property, corporate tax rates, etc. It's hard, if possible at all, to find anything that's cheaper over here and all of that feeds in to the cost of doing business. The first time I visited the US I was shocked at just how much cheaper _everything_ seemed to be. Frankly, I'm surprised it's only another 10%.