on 15-11-2002 23:58, (Mac Canada) at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Which brings me to another digression. The previous base TiBook was > selling here in Canada for Can$3,899, which worked out to about 1.56 > times the US price of $2,599 -- or pretty much the bank exchange > rate. The new, 867 MHz base machine is priced at Can3,699, or nearly > 1.61 times the US price of $2,299, so Apple is raking off an > additional 5 percent or so on the low end TiBook, at a time when the > Canadian dollar has actually increased in value by about 2 percent > over what it was last summer relative to the US dollar, so despite > the price cuts, Apple is hosing us Canadians for nearly 7 percent > more than its US customers.
Euro viewpoint: I was saying pretty much the same thing the other day when I saw the first prices in Euros. I'd just seen that the new iBooks were out, with the low-end model at $999, pretty amazing to see a new powerbook at under $1000, and then I was watching the news on TV and the up-to-the-minute exchange rate had the Euro at $1.01 US, so I thought, wow, we'll actually be getting new iBooks at less than 1000 Euros, as Apple has traditionally sold its products at US price x current exchange rate. Then I went to various online Apple Stores in Europe, to find that the the $999 iBooks were priced at 1099 Euros (+ tax). Bummer. Nice 10% markup. And in typical European fashion, when I complained about this on various European Mac mailing lists, people went out of their way to defend Apple and provide lists of excuses of why Apple had to charge more. Oh well. But this is also an area where people like to have their 20% sales tax hidden in the final sales price. Seriously, Europeans tend to think it "sneaky" when sales tax is added on to the advertised selling price. And they also go out of their way to justify the 20% sales tax, too. Oh well. Sean -- Mac Canada is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Shop Canadian, visit Mantek Services <http://www.mantek.mb.ca> Low Prices That Will Keep YOU and Your MAC Smiling Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac Canada info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-can.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-canada%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
