Sike;535326 Wrote: > The getting screwed was referring to the price. Logitech selling in > through their own chanells 225 $ is quite a slap in the face... > > I don't mind finding the bugs. I don't want to use it as an alarm > clock, to turn on/off any other equipment with it or link to facebook. > I just want to listen to music.
The issue is similar in Canada, where the CDN dollar is higher than the US dollar and yet the MSRP is $379.00 CDN. The Touch is not yet available in Canada and one rumour has it that it will be May before the CDN stock arrives. I can't speak to any extraordinary warranty requirements in Canada, but the packaging and software do have to be in both English and French. Still, the extra cost for this and other expenses such as cross-border shipping and customs brokerage do not justify the huge price disparity. There is no duty on items like this under NAFTA. As I have said in other posts, I do not mind spending a bit more for a product if I can buy it locally. But, I do mind being gouged on the price if the price delta is too large. The Internet has helped to bring some of this price discrimination in Canada under control because consumers can check prices around the world and register their dissatisfaction in one way or another if they think they are being ripped off. (A sunglass manufacturer once tried to block Canadian IP addresses to prevent Canadians from checking US prices--a lame and laughable attempt to prevent the knowledge of discrimatory pricing from becoming more widely known.) It does, however, baffle me that companies would continue such blatant price discrimination when people have such easy access to pricing information the world over. First, there is the damage that this discrimination does to their reputation--ie, it creates the perception that consumers exist in other countries only to be squeezed for their money and exploited by limiting purchasing options (eg, not being able to purchase from the Logitech US site directly). And, as you have so ably pointed out it is slap in the face to early adopters who have contributed to the promotion of the product. It is actually because of you and others in the Logitech community that I am interested in purchasing one of these and in fact have pulled some CAT5e cable from my server to my stereo in order to accomodate Ethernet connectivity with a Touch. Second, it hurts the relationship between retailers and manufacturers, who really should be partners in the promotion and selling of these products. If I were a CDN retailer I would be pretty upset to see a large chunk of my potential business go directly to the US because the CDN distributor wouldn't sell units to me at a competitive price. Who would want to be a retailer of Logitech products when consumer outrage over price discrimination would force me to cut my profit margin to the extent that I could only compete if I sold them for a loss or for a such a slim margin that it is not worth my while to sell them? This in turn must hurt the sales of the CDN distributors and negative consequences on the distribution chain. The US dollar is declining against almost every major currency in the world. One would hope that such blatant price discrimination cannot last over the long term. Consumers do have options. In my case, I have a US currency bank account and credit card and travel to the US a few times a year--I can pick up one in the US at a much reduced price to what I would have to pay in Canada. I would rather not have to do this, but I will if the blatant price discrimation continues. Or, I will simply choose not to purchase one at all and register my dissatisfaction that way--that is also an option. -- dmg ------------------------------------------------------------------------ dmg's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37076 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=77371 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
