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In lugnet.lego, Michael Shiels wrote:
> Here is my take on the math
>
> USD - 40
>
> in EUR approx 32.40 EUR.
>
> BUT in USA taxes are on top, in Europe, ~25% VAT is included so
>
> 40.63 EUR would be the VAT INCLUDED PRICE.
>
> SO the price seems to make sense no??
25% is a far higher rate of VAT than you actually pay anywhere in Europe. Tax
considerations do narrow the price difference, but there's still a difference.
There's also the problem that the dollar is pretty weak compared to the Euro, so
if you ask the European price, you won't sell goods in the US. So it does look
like there's some subsidising/spreading going on, but otherwise the product just
wouldn't sell.
But Jake - it would only have taken a few words to say the US price is less tax,
and the EU price includes VAT. It should have been blindingly obvious that
announcing the price of 40 Dollars and 40 Euros in the same message would be
inflammatory. It has been every time it happens in this, and every other
market.
From another angle, when I recently asked if you expected criticism over the mix
of parts in the roof packs*, you said you always expect someone to complain, no
matter what you do. That wasn't the point of the question, so let me try to
make it clearer.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time out, or a little more time, to try and second
guess how these things are going to be received. You said you're an optimistic
guy, so maybe you need to bring in a pessimist too. It's fine to say that
whatever issues arise, you want "everyone to go home happy", but it doesn't have
to come to a crisis every time. How hard can it be to head off a few criticisms
before they happen? We AFOLs are always turning out the same old lines, so just
write them down somewhere. You'll never please everyone, and there'll always be
someone who comes up with a new line, but it's a real disappointment to see Lego
set itself up for exactly the same criticism time and time again.
Jason Railton
*i.e. more 2-wide slopes than 4-wide slopes, no internal corners. As William
Howard asked, did anyone at Lego actually try and build a roof with any of these
roof packs? You certainly couldn't build the one in the German preview pictures
from TLC. Even if you were as fanatical and misty-eyed about bright red roofs
as Lego seem to be...
And this footnote is dragging on a bit, but I'll put out my solution to two
problems to the wider community. If you want to sell new dark grey to the old
fans, make a roof pack in it and get the parts in there that people want. We
won't need to mix the slopes in with old dark grey bricks, and a blue tint is
fine in slate roofing. Give us internal and external slopes in multiples of
four, lots of all the funny ridge bits, and you can even miss out on the old 90°
corner ridges as they're redundant, but will be an easy shot for the dedicated
moaners. So - to border on the facetious - everybody goes home happy!
Please note that this idea is totally dedicated to the public domain, and if
pressured I'll happily admit that anyone you care to nominate from Lego thought
of it first.
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