I just noticed that if you buy a 128 gb Pixel 8 from the Murena Shop in Europe the price is 649 € but if you buy it in the US the price is 649 $ (which are 553 € in exchange). So why are we paying around 100 € more in Europe for the same phone?
Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/OS the deGoogled mobile OS and online services
I Europe we have value-added taxes. In US they have local taxes, I don’t know the full details but the price differences are normal
Because prices in the EU have to include taxes. For example, in Germany we have 19% VAT so we pay 545,38€ for the phone and around 120€ in taxes. This differs between countries as EU and EFTA countries have different taxes, but are all mandated to include taxes within the advertised sales price.
In the US it is custom not to include taxes with the advertised sales price. This means US customers pay 649$ for the device and then on top of that the taxes within their jurisdiction.
So we do not really pay that much more than anything more at all for the device itself. We might pay more taxes - but that’s a whole different conversation as this is nothing Murena can control.
Taxes are usually the reason for something like this, as explained already.
However, if you set the Murena store to US, there’s still a “Note: the amount below is inclusive of all taxes and customs duties for your country.”
Perhaps this would need more explaining?
It would be nice for the team to offer some more explaining, yes. Thanks for noticing the note @AnotherElk
I suspect the note refers to tariffs. Sales tax varies by state. Here in Massachusetts it’s 6.25%—much less than Germany’s 19%, but, of course, you have universal health care.
Yeah it’s pretty annoying as I’m kind of a penny pincher for no good reason. Most of the stuff I buy I can easily afford, but it always annoys me when I buy something online and get hit with close to 10% sales tax on checkout.
In the early days of the internet you could buy stuff online without sales tax. Just goes to show how slow the wheels of government turn. I probably went ten years without sales tax from when I first started buying stuff online to when they finally started making regulations about it.
Oh, BTW, in the USA sales tax goes by state and county. In my county (Orange County California) it’s 9.25%, what a rip. Sales tax goes into a mix of coffers for state and county governments and it can even include city coffers. My state does have subsidized health insurance for low income, but if we had universal health care (which we desperately need) it would be federally funded which excludes sales tax.
The rates may vary from country to country and state state to state in some cases due to the tariffs and relevant taxes. While providing an exact amount per state or country may not be possible will ask the team to add some more content around it to avoid the confusion.
County government in Massachusetts is practically nonexistent, so that’s why I overlooked it. My bad.
Cities here can also charge sales tax. Not all cities dig their their hands into the till, but some are greedy about it. In some Los Angeles county cities it goes as high as 10.5% so I shouldn’t complain too much. Still my city and one other are the highest in Orange County.
Whatever the case I think it’s a bullshit tax and gives too many regional governments the opportunity to gouge people. Only the state should be allowed to charge sales tax.