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Folks,
Steady liberalisation in India of the foreign imports has meant that it may no longer an advantage to buy electronic goods to take to India. A current case might help to illustrate this.
A friend asked me to check UK prices of a PDA - let's call it a Kendo AB 1234 which retails for Rs 5,800 [�70] in Goa. I could not find the model listed anywhere so I called the manufacturer's UK office. He informed me that the model was in fact ABC 1234 and it had been discontinued. He took my number and said he would call back if he could find one of his distributors with stock.
Whilst I was waiting for the call I looked up model ABC 1234 and found it listed in quite a few places for �130 and e-mailed the info. to Goa. A little later I got a call from a woman to say that they not been able to locate any stock. She then asked me if I was a Goan. When I told her my full name she recognised it, being a Goan and a Goan Voice UK subscriber herself. She said she would try again. I told her not to bother since I had only wanted to know the price which I had found out and concluded it was best to buy it in Goa. She said that the Company did not have stock to enable her to buy one as staff rates but she would do her best.
She called back today to say that she had located stocks with a distributor and had told him it was for her brother and he had agreed to sell it for �40.
So I had to agree to make a trip of about an hour in each direction by car (twice as long by public transport) to pick it up.
The moral of the story is that retail margins are very high in the UK and think twice before buying electronic goods to take to India. One tip: till they launch the Indian Froogle, check prices in India by doing a web search at http://www.google.co.in/
BTW Does anyone know the prices and availability of the Simputer - http://www.simputer.org/
Cheers,
Eddie Fernandes
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