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  #1  
Old 8th July 2010, 05:18 PM
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Miha Miha is offline
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Default Price discrepancy?

Can someone share some insight as to why is Ilford FB paper so much more expensive (up to 50%) in Continental Europe than in UK? Is it because of Ilford generosity towards domestic market (highly unlikely) or is it because every single CE dealer thinks Ilford will sell no matter the price just because it's Ilford. I see no discrepancy in Ilford Film.


Miha
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Old 8th July 2010, 05:22 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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I would guess that it to do with the strength of the euro against the english pound at the moment,Richard
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Old 8th July 2010, 05:36 PM
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I would guess that it to do with the strength of the euro against the english pound at the moment,Richard
Surely that would make it cheaper?
The Harman express website will ship anywhere.
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Old 8th July 2010, 05:52 PM
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If you're ordering direct from Harman's website, if you click on "Terms & Conditions" and scroll down to section 6, it does state that some countries have certain restrictions on imported goods and that they may impose duties. However, why fibre-based paper should be affected and not film is beyond me to be honest.
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Old 8th July 2010, 11:41 PM
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As far as I am aware, no EU country is allowed to add duty to goods made in, and shipped from, the UK - that's rather the point of the EU (or it was the main point of the Common Market: it has expanded its remit rather wider these days <cough>). Non-EU countries might well do so of course.

Ilford's pricing structure in different countries has always been a mystery to me and can only assume it is indeed a question of charging whatever they think the local market will bear.
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Old 9th July 2010, 07:37 AM
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I'm sure Ilford will have two different pricing structures - the domestic one, so UK retail price equals cost, plus VAT, plus dealers markup; and the export one, which is generally a cheaper cost price to dealers, plus country taxes, plus dealer markup. I would also say they won't be shipping free anywhere and this will be added to the original cost price and then country taxes will be calculated on top of that, and then the dealer markup on top of that . . .
Shipping is massively expensive these days . . . and petrol isn't getting any cheaper!
Phil
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Old 9th July 2010, 11:29 AM
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.Shipping is massively expensive these days
On the contrary, shipping is cheap. A pallet, 80x120 cm in size, loaded up to 2,8 m, can be shipped from UK to almost anywhere in Europe for arund 100 GBP. A pallet can accomodate at least 1000 boxes of Ilford paper containing 100 sheets of 5x7 paper. So the shipping costs per 5x7 box are 0,1 GBP. Do not confuse courier rates with forwarding agency rates. There is a massive difference. To put this in perspective: Ilford Warmtone 5x7/100 costs around 34 GBP in UK, and around 65 EUR in CE! No, it is not the shipping cost.

Miha
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Old 9th July 2010, 11:53 AM
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Isn’t this the whole point of the EU ?

If you can find Product X in one Member State for less money that another, you can buy without restriction from that State.

Retailers are in business to make a profit (hopefully they have other motives as well) - so they charge the maximum they think they can get away with.

With the Internet, any shop in the world is only a mouse click away.

FADU Sponsors AG & Silverprint will ship internationally – you just need to work out if the how much the product you need to buy to make it worth your while.

For my part, I bought my Ebony Camera plus from Badger Graphic in the USA and was simply amazed how easy the Import Duty and VAT was to deal with – all taken care of by the Courier, I just had to pay them with a Credit Card prior to delivery.

Since then, I have bought quite a lot of my LF hardware from the USA, as the prices of camera equipment over there make it worth my while.

I have also bought Moersch Toners directly from Wolfgang in Germany without any problems at all.

Martin
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Old 9th July 2010, 02:36 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Miha View Post
Can someone share some insight as to why is Ilford FB paper so much more expensive (up to 50%) in Continental Europe than in UK? Is it because of Ilford generosity towards domestic market (highly unlikely) or is it because every single CE dealer thinks Ilford will sell no matter the price just because it's Ilford. I see no discrepancy in Ilford Film.


Miha
It's because of distribution - Ilford have to use someone to perform the task of distributing, and promoting / selling, to all the retailers in other countries. There are two ways of doing this, either you set up a subsidary company and warehouse in the other countires and do it yourself, or you employ the use of a distributor. So, for example, in the USA, Ilford use a company called Wynit ( www.wynit.com ) and similar partners in other countries - but the distributor has to make money too of course, and this is probably one of the reasons the goods come out more expensive - there is a party in the middle taking a cut - but there isn't really any other way around it - it would be impossible for Ilford to distribute directly to every retailer in the world from the UK. And it only makes sense to have subsidary companies and your own warehouses if you have a VERY large volume to justify it - using a distributor, especially one who already specialises in Photo products gives an immediate route to market as they probably already deal with the very retailers Ilford want to stock their products.

Matt

Last edited by Matt5791; 9th July 2010 at 02:45 PM.
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Old 9th July 2010, 04:02 PM
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Originally Posted by Matt5791 View Post
It's because of distribution - Ilford have to use someone to perform the task of distributing, and promoting / selling, to all the retailers in other countries. There are two ways of doing this, either you set up a subsidary company and warehouse in the other countires and do it yourself, or you employ the use of a distributor. So, for example, in the USA, Ilford use a company called Wynit ( www.wynit.com ) and similar partners in other countries - but the distributor has to make money too of course, and this is probably one of the reasons the goods come out more expensive - there is a party in the middle taking a cut - but there isn't really any other way around it - it would be impossible for Ilford to distribute directly to every retailer in the world from the UK. And it only makes sense to have subsidary companies and your own warehouses if you have a VERY large volume to justify it - using a distributor, especially one who already specialises in Photo products gives an immediate route to market as they probably already deal with the very retailers Ilford want to stock their products.

Matt

It's good to have clear information to explain pricing such as this, otherwise people are sometimes left feeling they are being ripped off. Thanks for the clarification it might be good to bear this in mind when wondering why some products in the uk are so expensive.

Neil
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