[Glorfindelrb]

It really has nothing to deal with exchange rate and it still cost less to buy in US including rate, taxes, transport, fees from dealer and transporter.

Just absurd and once Pentax will be doing as bad in EU as in US, it will be because of this pricing policy.

[pathdoc]

Want to know the definition of exorbitant? I've seen some people charge $50 shipping on a $20 camera body, from the Continental US to Canada. I think the buyers are determined to get something out of it, any way they can, if for some reason the bidding ends low. So it seems they build their profit margin into the postage costs.

No, the absolute price itself isn't too bad (except when you're bidding on an utterly dead parts camera, when it becomes insane), but it's the relative costs that get me. Imagine the full-frame coming out and having to pay $5000+ to have it shipped to you!!

[monochrome]

It really has nothing to deal with exchange rate and it still cost less to buy in US including rate, taxes, transport, fees from dealer and transporter.

Just absurd and once Pentax will be doing as bad in EU as in US, it will be because of this pricing policy.

Ricoh's price to the distributors and their separate regional operating companies is the same whichever company buys product from Ricoh Japan. But the distributors and operating companies have to buy Yen to buy cameras. Dollars buy more Yen than Euros buy right now, as illustrated above.

But you are going to believe what you want to believe.

[cxdoo]

EURJPY ~ 131
USDJPY ~ 121


as of now.


You have a point, monochrome, it's just not this one.

[monochrome]

EURJPY ~ 131
USDJPY ~ 121


as of now.


You have a point, monochrome, it's just not this one.

Read my entire earlier post. Over the last three years USD has appreciated more than twice as much as Euro vs. JPY, and there is a 19% Euro VAT disadvantage on published prices. Taken together those two explain the supposed pricing disparity.

[Glorfindelrb]

I want to see how you get this result. When I try to do it for a 31 Ltd I have this result :

FR (la boutique pentax) :
1 499,00 € including 20% VAT --> 1249.17 € no VAT, including 9% import tax --> 1146.02€ --> 1146.02*131.641429 (rate from google) --> 150 864.30 Y
US (B&H) :
$798.70 no VAT included --> I suppose there is no import tax as it's a favorable case for your theory --> 798.70*121.138704 (rate from google) --> 96 753.48 Y
US (MSRP) :
$1,096.95 no VAT included --> same as before --> 1,096.95*121.138704 --> 132 883.10 Y

So even if there is no import tax for lenses between US and Japan (and I don't know that), FR street price is 56 % Higher than B&H / Adorama retail price and 14% Higher than the very theoretical MSRP.
The answer is NO it's not explaining the price disparity.

If you buy it from B&H, all taxes and surcharges are calculated by them and You get it at home in a week for a total cost of $1,097.67 (import duties, VAT, surcharge and shipping paid) ~ 1010.10€. You'll pay 48% more to buy it in France. The only question is the warranty but 500€ for 2 years of warranty is a bit too much.

I got my 31Ltd used MIJ and in mint condition for 610€ in the marketplace (from a french seller), nobody is thinking it's possible to sell this lens at 1500€.

[monochrome]

You're probably right about the 31. Two things I'd point out:

1. You're working down from the retail price. Ricoh Imaging Europe and Ricoh Imaging NA (the regional distribution subsidiaries) buy from Ricoh Japan (the manufacturing company) at the factory price. The Distribution companies mark up their price to cover their costs and then sell to the Dealers. The math works differently if you start from the Japan Factory door price and work up (but we don't know what the markup % to retail is).

2. According to asahi man the FA Limiteds have not been manufactured since December, 2012. After the batch run ended in 2012, Ricoh Japan maintained inventory of the lenses and took orders from the Distributors. asahi man says early in 2015 all the remaining FACTORY stock of the three Limiteds was shipped to the Distributors; there are no more Limiteds available at the FACTORY for the Distributors to order, so today's exchange rates are irrelevant as far as Published price is concerned. What matters was the exchange rate(s) at the time the Distributors paid for the FACTORY stock. asahi man also said Ricoh Europe has sold to Dealers all their stock of the FA31 - there are no more available from Ricoh Europe after Dealer stock is exhausted.

FR has priced the FA31 at this scarcity price since last spring (a similar thread went around then), probably because they only have a few (or one) left and can't get any more from Ricoh Europe. Ricoh NA likely has a more significant supply available and is dealing them to B&H and Adorama to get them out of their own inventory, so the Limiteds might be Clearance-priced here. If correct, that is in fact a quite rational regional pricing strategy.

I bought an FA31 low-serial mint with papers and box for $900 in August, 2014 and a NIB FA77 on a one-day Halloween Special in October 2014 for $698. I paid $450 for a low-serial FA43 in February, 2014. They're all pretty easy to get here. Of course rumors abound that Ricoh will issue refreshed FA Limiteds in 2016, so clearing stock of the classic editions is logical.

I think we're all too eager to ascribe nefarious intent to Ricoh (or incompetence sometimes) when there is almost always a more businesslike and logical explanation for these curious circumstances.

[bxf]

I suppose this is going OT, but anyway..

Some decades ago, when I migrated from Canada to Australia, I saw that the Mazda RX7, which had a US retail price of about $15K, was about $50K in OZ. At that time, the Australian Dollar was higher than the Canadian Dollar. and, if I'm not mistaken, higher than the US Dollar as well.

Local dealers were telling me that it's import duties, taxes, etc, but simple math said otherwise. I concluded that distributors set prices according to:

1. Limited size markets (i.e. smaller populations).
2. Limited competition in any given class of product.
3. Limited public awareness. The US market, in the past at least, was very sensitive to prices higher than necessary (I'm not so sure this is quite as true today). In many cases. Australians were actually unaware that they were being ripped off.

The above are not meant to imply that I believe myself to have any special knowledge of marketing strategies. They are merely guesses based on observations.

[noelpolar]

Just because I can, a photo taken today of a shop selling new Pentax K10Ds ...... they are even on special..... now someone blame Ricoh for that.......


New K10s by Noel Leahy, on Flickr
In Hong Kong.....

[pathdoc]

Fascinating - what's the HKD-$AU exchange rate right now, just for context?

[noelpolar]

Fascinating - what's the HKD-$AU exchange rate right now, just for context?

5.4..... so about $800

[pathdoc]

That's in the same ballpark as when I was last there - in 1999!!

[bertwert]

5.4..... so about $800

And you can get a K-3 for...

[Nicolas06]

No, it's 5 weeks vacation (25 days), you pay for healthcare directly and indirectly it is absolutely not free (but probably 99% less expensive than the American medical mafia), public education is free but useless, therefore you go private and that costs a lot, etc...How about a 4 dollar expresso, an 8 dollar gallon of gas, and so so, the list is endless. The terrorist attacks however are free of charge.

I live and work in France, like every country that's a mix of good and bad things...
- You have 5 weeks of vacation (minimum) if you work 35hours a week. If your contract say you work more per week (that the most common case) and then you get compensated with more vacations. All the job I got I had arround 7 weeks per year. My last contract say I work 214 days a year if you want to be precise.
- Buying a car you may buy a tax if it polute a lot (almost nobody do it), but there no tax for car ownership at all. I heard that it can be quite expensive in US. But in France you pay for most highways.
- The salary you actually get in your bank account, you already have great social security bundled... A friend of mine said he add to pay 400$ a month for his couple.
- Apparently the local taxes bound to a flat are much more expensive in US.
- School is free from the worst to the best in the country. Private might be helpfull if you live a shitty place but if you make an effort in the place you live, you get the best for free. I agree this is not fair as you have to plan to live in area with good schools.
- in France, you get an unlimited mobile plan + mobile internet for €15 and you can cancel at any time.
- ADSL price is 15€, 30€ if bundled with illimited wired phone and TV access to a hundred of TV channels.
- The terrorist are for free, terrible psychologically sure, but the 130 persons killed in Paris last time are rather small compared to the few thousand in the world trade center and in both cases you are much more likely to die out of car accident than to die in a terrorist attack but people are not affraid of their car...
- Overall life expectancy is 4 years more than in US (81 vs 77). Counting that nobody know what is here after and time is the most precious resource you have and never can go back, getting 5% longer life on average is not negligible.
- If you have no money and are legaly there, there lot of social help so you can get almost free flat, you get money to buy things, free public transportation, more money if you have childs etc.

I don't know what is better and don't want to go into political argument. But I'am not sure either US or France people are in a bad situation. I know that if I look the money per inhabitant in France and US corrected of what you can buy is almost the same in France and US and that we are among the most wealthy country in the word.

Sure as an engineer I seen that in the same company I work for, if I asked to go to Boston instead of staying in Nice French Rivieria, I would be paid double and pay far less taxes. That's an issue because many decide to leave for just that reaon but that's another topic. But on the opposite, I get to work in 15 minutes, I can go to sky for the day in winter, I can go to the beach in summer, do hiking in the back country and I'am near my familly...

[monochrome]

I've been working 50 hours a week, 252 days a year for 40 years. And I plan to keep working for 15 more years. Nothing is free.



But I can buy an FA31/1.8 really cheap.