I’m trying to buy a tried and tested rain jacket that doesn’t look like a trash bag or a poncho. After some searching around, I found that the Columbia Men’s Watertight II Rain Jacket is highly recommended in the US, has a retail price of $60 on Amazon and other popular stores, and a price of $100 on Columbia’s official US Store
I set out to find the same jacket in Taiwan, and to my disarray I could only find Columbia Taiwan selling them for $3980 NT - a significant markup from their US price. There were a couple of legitimate sellers on Shopee selling them for $2500, but the jacket is out of stock over there now.
Even the Indian Columbia official website lists it for the equivalent of ~$2000 NT maximum retail price. And the Japanese store is similar as well.
Why the crazy markup here? Why is a basic Columbia rain jacket 2x the price here and the same price in other Asian countries? It is the same story with other popular brands such as North Face (50-100% markup) and Patagonia (30%+ markup)
I would also appreciate if someone can recommend an affordable and nice looking rain jacket… I checked out Decathlon already and they didn’t look as good at their $2000 price point.
Pony up for the Patagonia torrent shell. The best purchase I ever made. 110% waterproof and packs into its own pocket. It’s the number one rated rain jacket in the world (I made that up but it probably is)
It’s $7160 NT here. It’s ~$5200 NT in the US official Patagonia store and usually available for cheaper on eCommerce platforms and retail stores. I would have legitimately considered buying it if it was cheaper.
I used to work in the industry, a buddy called them PataGucci. Luxury but expensive. I wear mostly Patagonia underwear. Can def recommend the quality of their products
Same reason everything else is expensive? If you want to buy an unbranded plastic body condom… cheap!
Decathlon has decent stuff, sometimes good prices. What I do is a crawl through outdoor sports stores and just look at the sales stuff. Columbia and North Face are pretty commercial but decent. ArcTeryx, Black Diamond, and Patagonia are expensive but great. Marmot, Mountain Hardwear, also great brands.
Hit the shops, shop the sales, don’t be in a hurry
P.S: I found the jacket on the Costco online store
It is available only in two boring colors and is still more expensive than the US. Plus, they offer only American sizes, so I have to get a small which limits my options to just the black color. Meh.
It’s not that simple. Even Philippines has the same jacket for $90 USD. Taiwan so far has the highest MRP I’ve seen. It’s the same case with many brands.
I’d probably put it down to lots of “rich people” who don’t really care about these markups. Hong Kong and Taiwan seem to have similar prices for these brands.
At this point I think it’s cheaper for me to fly to other countries, buy stuff and return to Taiwan… I could make up a $15k NT round trip tickets to India buy purchasing wisely
I got Columbia rain pants on my last trip to Canada, on sale. Can’t find anything here that quality, size, and price. Period, just isn’t available in Taiwan. Definitely purchases like this are better overseas if you can wait…
Tbh, most purchases are more expensive here. Whether it be shoes, winter jackets, rain jackets or tech products. I find the same dilemma here at all times. Prices in nearby Asian countries (even islands) for the same item are often 50-100% cheaper.
I can’t understand how the locals afford these things. I’m not talking about the older rich folks, but the younger generation. A lot of them make less than western workers but have to regularly spend more to buy these popular brands
You’ve been here a while, you haven’t noticed the ‘Taiwan tax’ in operation on almost every imported good? Too busy catfishing on fb or something? In my opinion, its kind of like you said, mummy and daddy are probably filthy rich, and happy to buy little Eason his cool North Face jacket at whatever price, also customs stick their beak in pretty hard.
Costco in store have heavy discounts on coats/jackets at the moment, could be worth popping in or at least signing up to one of the local Costco FB groups which regularly update in house sales.
I do that when I go to Japan: fill up my suitcase with basic goods (not precisely the Columbia jacket you are targeting, but similar things for everyday life) at a much cheaper price than what I would pay in Taiwan. I also get better service there from workers who care about what they are selling, or do a damn good job of pretending to care!
Living with their mommies and daddies long into the 40s and 50s.
No rent/mortgage, no electricity or water charges, no TV or Internet cost.
Lots of disposable income.
I know a young woman of 31 years old still living with her mommy and daddy. She makes about $50k per month, but she’s going to Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, etc. OFTEN. Also, she purchases a lot of Chanel and other brand name products. Easy to do when sucking off the teat of mommy and daddy.
End of season sales, outlets etc reduce the price but it’s still comparable with the M.R.P in other countries for the same item. So that Columbia jacket I mentioned above does have a wacky color on sale but even after the heavy discount it is still near US and India MRP.
I was just in the market for a basic jogging shoe and couldn’t find one at a reasonable price even at Gloria Outlets. It was still $1000 more than buying in the US…
I guess I’ll be following @afterspivak strategy on my next vacation
Because any branded stuff that isn’t UnoQlo or NET is marked up like 300% over everywhere else. Levi jeans are like almost 4000 a pair when you can buy it from ebay for like 10 quids (from the UK), not to mention Levi jeans retails for around 50 bucks in the US anyways.
Seriously, just buy it from Amazon assuming you got the sizes right. I buy clothing off Taobao because quality’s all similar (actually not bad) and it’s much cheaper than Taiwan.
It’s likely import tax. They are trying to make it more advantageous to buy from local manufacturers.
I was trying to buy all clad cooking pans from Amazon and ship it to Taiwan because it’s not available here, and they wanted to charge something ridiculous for import taxes. Hong Kong doesn’t have such import taxes so they were cheap to buy there. They would prefer I buy locally made pans.
High import taxes on most things here. Vitamins is another one. I stock up on my vitamins with my US trips, they’re like double prices here due to import tax. I remember they were more lax with import tax a few years ago when ordering from online, now they charge it for every incoming item no matter how small. Likely all the resellers are getting hit with the same import taxes and need to pass the costs down to the consumer.
