Hello …
I’m looking to get Intuos Pen & Touch Small.
On PCHome I see ~3400 TWD price. (pcstore.com.tw/pchome24h/M17774878.htm)
On Amazon the price is ~76 USD = 2300 TWD (amazon.com/gp/product/B00EN2 … PDKIKX0DER)
Why might there be such huge difference? In case you know about it, which one would you recommend? Also I’m not sure how the warranties work out, if I go to another country.
Thanks.
There are sometimes pretty extreme price differences. I’m trying to buy a gorillapod tripod for my SLR, but the only ones I can find in Taiwan are literally double the price it would cost in the US. I found the reason why is because gorillapod doesn’t have a Taiwan dealer, so it’s likely nobody’s buying them in bulk for resale. In other words, the price difference for these gray-market imports is the shipping fee from places where they are sold through dealerships.
That’s not the case here, though. If you check Amazon, the original price is $99 (NT$2,968). And that’s before sales tax. It only looks like the difference is huge because the Amazon item is so heavily discounted.
Thanks for reply.
One thing that worries me is that if I get it from Wacom authorized sellers in Taiwan, there won’t be a warranty issue. But that may not be the case with Amazon.
It says (amazon.com/gp/help/customer/ … eId=468516)
‘Please note, that in order for an item to be eligible for warranty coverage, many manufacturers require the item to be purchased from an authorized dealer. Amazon.com and seller may not be an authorized dealer for all items they sell. If you are in doubt, you can confirm that a seller is an authorized dealer by contacting the manufacturer.’
I have emailed customer support of Wacom US asking if Amazon is an “authorized seller” and what is the nature of warranty.
Since Amazon is a huge e-tail, a lot of vendors is doing direct business with them. For PCHome, they usually use a distributor to do it. So there could be a first price premium there.
Then PCHome is usually taking higher profit than Amazon (Different country, different habits and competitors), so this could be a second price premium.
And finally, maybe there is the need to pay for higher duties and freight to import the product in Taiwan (Generally speaking. But it depends on the product and country of origin). And may be Amazon can better bargain than PChome.
For the warranty, Amazon or PCHome should be the same. But I suppose if you bought the product where you want to be cover, it could be easier. This is to check with Wacom if they have international warranty, etc…
Hope it helps!
I still think there is price fixing on electronics here. I have shopped for quite a few things and frequently find exactly the same price regardless if I look at PCHome, ruten, yahoo, 3C (brick and mortar) and mom and pop stores. It would be basically the only way that they could stop the big sellers from running the mom and pop stores out of businesses.
So what that means is that the shops don’t get caught up in the sales/price wars that are commonly seen in the US. I have also noticed that there is a lag when a product sees a big drop in the US price due to it becoming dated.