Given weakness of dollar how can a UK resident best take advantage when buying MAC?

[loGan]

I was just doing a comparison of the prices on Apple US store verses the UK store and even taking into account the 17.5% VAT that might be levied the arbitrage is astonishing due to the weakness of the dollar at the moment.

If you take away the VAT we are talking about a 700 pound difference on the Powerbook that I would like to buy. Even with the VAT the difference is ?350. That is a difference of $1334 dollars if you get hit by tax and $670 paying tax for you US guys.

Ouch.

Can anyone recomend a reseller in this country who might be more competive than the Apple Store UK?

Think about a mini pod for ?140! That is approximately the cost for a UK tourist if you were to buy one in the US at the moment!

There are a few guys on Ebay who seem to be doing this arbitrage but I don't really want to spend this amount of money on Ebay.

Any ideas guys apart from spending the difference on a weekend in New York at the Apple Store!

 

[FatBoy_Grin]

I was thinking the same thing.
I'm looking to buy a new ibook or powerbook. You'd be daft not to try and take advantage of those cheap american prices.
But the way i see it is, is that you

A: need to know somebody in america who can buy it for you or will let you make use of their address
or
B: Go there yourself and "smuggle" it back into the country

niether of those options are open to me at the moment

anybody have other ideas?

 

[c.c.r.]

Pardon my ignorance, but is A illegal? If it isn't, and I let you use my address, do I get to play with the Powerbook a bit before I send it on to you?

 

[yinyang]

I was thinking the same thing.
I'm looking to buy a new ibook or powerbook. You'd be daft not to try and take advantage of those cheap american prices.
But the way i see it is, is that you

A: need to know somebody in america who can buy it for you or will let you make use of their address
or
B: Go there yourself and "smuggle" it back into the country

niether of those options are open to me at the moment

anybody have other ideas?

if you can go with option A, get them to buy it for you and then have them post it in different packaging and sent all the other documents separately then you will also be able to bypass VAT/duty as you can claim that "i forgot the laptop and my friend is sending it back to me" story...! of course you then don;t get the whole out of the box experience

 

[monkedsel]

Can't you just send it as a gift and avoid any extra tax?

 

[loGan]

Even with the tax we are talking about a big price difference but the tax can be claimed back legally anyway if you have to pay it on import.

It would be a bit naughty to sneak it through customs but people do this everyday when they go for a shopping w/e in NY for example.

Prefereably I would like someone else to do the hard work in shipping units over here where I can buy one at a more competive price than high street stores or the Apple online store.

Of course the best solution of all would be for apple to drop the ? price on their store to better replect the movement in FX rates at the moment.

 

[PodMax]

i thought about doing what your thinking about doing with a 3g 10 gig ipod...i took the plunge and got a mate to send it out to me.

in total i saved around ?80 with free postage..well i say free....just cost me a pint when i next go accross the pond...

good luck if you decide to get the powerbook