Price difference UK vs US

So just for example, a M18x with 675M SLI and a 3820QM is about £3000 while in the US it's about 2800 dollars which is equal to, get this, around 1700 british pounds. Why is it nearly double more expensive in the UK? Might have something to do with electronics in general actually, but the difference between pricing in alienware gear is astonishing.

 

Its madness.

 

don't u guys get like free health care and other perks?

 

Large chunk of its down to taxes, the main chunk is because they can get away with it.

As sally said though, free healthcare and given my 18x came out of my student loan (i work as well so i dont really need it), I'm happy paying a bit extra

 

The additional costs are likely those involved in meeting the VAT requirement, as well as the limited range of the market compared to the US.

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Off topic: Heh heh, "free".

 

Ha ha, that's really funny, in a very disturbing way. Surely, you jest. For the "employed contributors," (i.e., victims of government extortion,) nothing is ever received for free. The cool thing is when you buy an Alienware, you are actually getting to choose how your money is spent from the portion that was not confiscated.

That's pretty sad, Onasi. It certainly is important to choose wisely when selecting a laptop at those figures.

 

Currency conversion is a borked process. Same thing happens with Steam.

I just did identical configs on dell.com and dell.fr for m17x(3610QM, Win7pro, AMD 7970, 750GB disk, rest at default).

dell.com: 1969.00$ -> Convert to Euro : 1504.91 Euro
dell.fr: 1958.99 Euro -> Convert to USD : 2563.12$

If warranty would not be such a hassle, it seems like a huge advantage to buy in USD from Europe, Shipping could not cost > 400, or could it?

 

You can get 10% off if you ask the reps nice and sweet talk them a little.

Got a offer for the HD7970m, FHD screen, blu ray optical rest stock for about 1700 euro's. Same offer but then with the GTX660m for about 1500 euro's. The base M17x R4 cost 1500 euro's so 1500/1700 isnt that bad, but compared to the US it is a shame.

If interested I can give you my rep. details if you live in the Netherlands.

Warrenty isnt a hassle, take's 1 min. to fill in the warrenty form. When importing you pay shipping and tax. If I would import the above systems I would have payed more when importing it. Some configs are cheaper but most of em are not.

I imported the M17x R3 when it came out and saved 1000 euro's, but the base price was 500 euro's higher back then.

 

1- Buy a ticket to USA
2- Buy your alienware + any other electronics you want
3- Go back to England

Even if you just get the alienware you wanted = FREE vacation for 2 days plus money saved still

 

It is quite bad I have upto this point bought my laptops from the US and got them imported by a private delivery company who I had Asus ship it to in the US and had it declared for like £10 haha

I took a hunch with PC Specialist in the UK however who are selling Clevo's and you might wanna take a look because they are selling pre order 17 inch PEM models with the Ivy 3610QM and 7970M and with 8GB HyperX and a 240GB HyperX SSD it only comes to £1400. Starting to regret pulling the trigger on mine back in December now but oh well.

Alienware in the UK is still made in China as well so we are literally getting burned and then they add the extra 20% VAT. I bit the bullet with my M11x and got a good deal for £700 but still its hefty in comparison to US prices.

P.s we do get free health care but its pretty crap to be honest you get more illnesses than you had in our hospitals.

 

I did this, but obviously not for the purpose of buying an Alienware, i just ended up picking one up while i was there on holiday. Cost $1,000 per ticket per way, but i ended up saving over $1,000 when i bought my M11x R3 over there as apposed to from Dell Australia.

 

To the OP,

Might wanna check out my thread on saving money in the UK: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ccessories-please-contribute.html#post7058066

It's unfortunate that there is such a cost difference - there is nothing we can do in the UK to avoid it as its all government related tax robbing, custom duty extorting, price hiking manipulative politicians.

Even if you look at buying from the US, chances are it wont work out that much cheaper because of the above charges by the time it arrives in the UK.....as one member said earlier take a trip...get on a plane....buy the system...unbox it so its "used" and avoid the fees and have a nice vacation while you are at it! - that's how I plan on doing my next purchase of this magnitude....YOU might as well enjoy YOUR money instead of forking it over to Her Majesty.....

Alternatively, have a read of my thread and if its of interest to you, shoot me a PM and we can see if we can save you a few quid by buying in the UK....

 

Would you buy it from somehwere like Best Buy? I can imagine getting a custom build sent to you can be a little tricky.

 

No. I wouldnt buy from BestBuy or the like - the only way I would do it would be to buy direct from Dell - I am a stickler for warranty, especially when spending several thousand pounds. I don't know how warranty would work out if bought from a US retailer but I know that Dell warranty is internationally transferrable, so that would be my choice.

I havent looked into it further but I think I would consider a service from the likes of BundleBox - gives you a US postal address so you can actually place an order from Dell US. Normally, BundleBox (or the like) would forward ship it to your UK (or alternative) address but I would make arrangements to pick it up whilst visiting the US.

Like I said, I havent looked into it but I imagine this would eradicate the problem of getting Dell US to custom build a system for you as they would be shipping to a US postal address supplied by BundleBox (or equivalent provider) - the only potential drawback that I can think of is wether or not you can actually pick up from BundleBox or not.....if they insist on shipping it out, it wouldnt work.....

I would then have to resort to plan B.....get someone in the US to order it on my behalf and I would pay the invoice and pick it up in person....

 

Just a little note here from my past mistakes - Dell only transfers the standard express warranty, they will not transfer the Accidental Care warranty internationally.

 

Good point. I would certainly want to look into the warranty side in alot more detail before buying - best to know all the "ins and outs" before ordering something that you wont benefit from.