FredM wrote:
True my mistake, sorry, I edited the original post. The 5D was FF and became 1.3 with the 7D but the 1D was always 1.3, sorry.
5D was FF, 5D2 also FF , the 7D is a whole new line and it's 1.6 not 1.3, and yes the 1D series have all been 1.3
I've always seen a difference between the Canadian and US exchange rate,
and the price differences of products.
camera equipment, magazines, books stand out as some of the worst ones.
even when the Canadian $ was worth more than the US $, the $ amount was still higher in Canada.
jim allison wrote:
How much of the price difference is due to European VAT taxes? That is something Canon has no control over. Furthermore, Europeans are getting a lot more services from their governments, especially healthcare. It seems to me to be mostly a difference in the way the US and Europe raise money from their respective citizens. I was a wholesale camera salesman in the US for over thirty years, and for the vast majority of that time, we had a grey market problem with foreign goods flooding our markets. The US is pushing a cheap dollar in oder to boost our exports. The Europeans favor a strong currency.These monitary policies
also have a lot to due with the price gap....Show more →
That's why in my original post I gave the price with and without some of the VAT that could be added to the US-converted price. The Canon stuff is made in Japan, they have their own problem of tax, unemployment, retirement, etc. but if you consider the price of the Canon's stuff you can reasonnably assume they make quite some money when they sell it in the US why do they need to add on top of it for some countries to make even more money?
I'm aware of the VAT between the European countries and what it provides to us but even if you don't take this into account the price is higher in the EU/UK than in the US...
The differences in the VAT between the various european countries is ridiculous, like in the US: you just have to drive in another state to buy your camera cheaper and come back, in the EU there is no border (inside) so high VAT just push the people to move more to buy things...I cannot imagine the shipping from japan to the UK or the EU to be that expensive that they have to charge more, especially considering that the price per container/day of shipping collapsed in the past months.
python2000 wrote:
I think we are above this kind of talk here.
It wasn't a pop, it was an easily-supported observation.
There's hardly a day goes by without a thread getting started about some UK or Europe-specific thing or other (our camera prices are a typical subject - lets talk about the 7D for a moment), and someone from your side of the pond will, 100% guaranteed, go to great lengths about the original poster being cheap for complaining about a camera that only costs $1699 (or whatever), completely missing the point that the discussion is about the fact that the camera costs £1699 in the UK (and more elsewhere in Europe) which is $2780 today.
Happens every single time, regardless of the number of clues left in the post, or in the location of the original poster...
Sure, but that's kind of a fact of life for a list that's primarily populated by folks from the USA. I'm not sure why, but one of the cultural consequences of living in such a large continent is that not everyone gets to travel overseas & be aware of geographical differences (in currencies, VAT, healthcare, government, etc.,etc.) in the same way that Europeans do, for example.
keithreeder wrote:
It wasn't a pop, it was an easily-supported observation.
There's hardly a day goes by without a thread getting started about some UK or Europe-specific thing or other (our camera prices are a typical subject - lets talk about the 7D for a moment), and someone from your side of the pond will, 100% guaranteed, go to great lengths about the original poster being cheap for complaining about a camera that only costs $1699 (or whatever), completely missing the point that the discussion is about the fact that the camera costs £1699 in the UK (and more elsewhere in Europe) which is $2780 today.
Happens every single time, regardless of the number of clues left in the post, or in the location of the original poster... ...Show more →
That just proves there are stupid people in the world. Even if it was unintentional, your statement comes across as an attack on people in the US.
That being said, yes there are plenty of self-centered dummies here, but many do not have the advantage of living in close quarters with other languages, cultures, countries that Europeans have.
keithreeder wrote:
At least Jim recognised that there is life outside of the US, Lars - many of his countrymen haven't even figured that out yet!
Keith, I don't want to make a mountain out of a mole hill, but in your original statement you said "life outside the US". That is objectionable. If you had mentioned the prices of equipment at the onset of the discussion no one would have batted an eye. I will stand with you when someone criticizes cheapness without the context. I will not stand with you when you make claims about our society - which is extremely diverse all by itself (about 1 in 7 are foreign born).
No bad feelings, it just sounded a little shallow. I'll move on now.
Lars, I think the gist of what what's been said, is that as a single, unified market, 1 head office reporting to Japan, straightforward English/Spanish/French codified market, with uniform requirements, uniform regulations (though states *could* vary slightly, I guess), single distributorship, Canon U.S.A is the proverbial "360 kilo" gorilla. ;-)
On margin and when pencilled out...that's a formidable distribution channel. Not that Canon Europa B.V. doesn't oversee (a lot) of potential customers. But realistically, it's not the same simple market as the US would be.
You are not comparing like with like. You cannot simply take the price of a product and complain that it is cheaper in one country than another - it is overly simplistic and ignores the many economic differences between countries. As Lars pointed out, there are serious price differentials within europe too, many of which related directly to the rights and privileges of the society. For example, i find it significantly cheaper to do much of my shopping in a moderately capitalist country where workers have fewer rights and benefits, rather than the heavily socialised country where i live. That country is "Rip-off Britain". It is no coincidence that the countries with the lowest prices are generally those where the worker (and the customer) has the fewest rights and benefits.
If you want to make this price comparison, you need to take such factors into account. Perhaps a better way would be to look at the cost of your camera kit in relation to the average disposable income of the country. Whilst not a perfect measure, this will at least take into partial account some of the basic differences in terms of income, taxation and cost of living.
Actually you are Keith. The National Insurance bank account ran dry in the early 1990's. Since then pensions and healthcare have been paid for by direct taxation.
keithreeder wrote:
We pay for that in tax and National Insurance, Jim - I don't think I'm paying for other people's health care through my camera purchases yet..!
america has no attention span or sense of history. europe is full of wankers just now discovering deodorant. there, i've insulted you both. can we move on?
rprouty wrote:
Aren't wages higher in most of Europe than in the US?
The average wage in Europe is a lot below the average wage in the USA. Most of the Western Europen countries and US have pretty similar wages. But 50% of Europe are countries like Albania, Russia, Romania, Ukraina, Belarus, Moldova and so on..........There are a lot of people that earn less than $ 5 a day
?