It just goes to show how much of a ripoff the UK is. Everyday I see sales and bargains galore for US folk. What do we get in the UK? Nada. Nothing. Zip. Diddly Squat.

If you think the UK is bad, try living in Ireland!!! Nothing is cheap here - well, okay petrol is cheaper than in the UK, but that is about it......

I definately afree with Deadman, and the lack of Uk deals

All the shops seem to sell is Hewlett packard and Memorex :P And nothing is at decent prices either - like £10 for 10 DVR-R's Only real option is to buy online, but that never seem to have many sales either

Um... Uh... There's got to be something... Oh yeah! You get less income inequality in the UK, instead of greed and capitalism run amok. Enjoy it

Anyway, I know how infuriating it can be. I just had to get my BenQ DW1640 from the other hemisphere. It's not available here for any price.

You mean inequality as in corporations basically owning the market and setting thier own prices/ lack of competition etc...or something else.

Companies in the UK are just as greedy and capitalist...well, not too sure on that one actually

Deal for today and web super specials:

http://www.aria.co.uk/

Today only:

http://www.scan.co.uk/

It's only because there are far more US posters than UK posters. There are hardly any poster in South Korea other than myself so I rarely post any information about the South Korean market for South Korean consumers because I don't really have to post for my own purposes.

Post a lot of UK deals yourself and you will soon see a lot of UK visitors gathering on CDFreaks forums and then you will also be able to see moderators and administrators gradually replaced with UK people as well.

I hardly ever buy electronics on "sale", mainly because the ones here that are on sale are only on sale because the product is discontinued.

Maybe they buy more stock in the US, and so they have a higher chance of overstock, here, where they buy less stock there would be a lower chance of high overstock, so there would be no need to put it on special offer.

Ben

it's well known that pricese are fixed in the uk they can choose which retail out let's can have their product's so you get exclusive deal's stopping real compition so keeping prices high & RRP ripoff retail price oops recomended retail price which means they can set the price stopping other people selling lower cos if they tried then they would not get any more product's from the manufacturer as they can choose who can have their products than having to sell to any retail outlet's who want sell their products
in the uk companie's quietly call the uk treasure island

Well, I wasn't being entirely serious, but... I meant government intervention into the economy through fiscal, monetary and legal policy. I observe that the UK, and the continental Europe especially, has a much more flat income distribution than the US. This tells me that either high earnings are taxed in a much more confiscatory manner, or there is excessive regulation of the economy; something is suppressing entrepreneurship that produces these high earnings. As a result, the market does not develop through healthy, or sometimes ruthless competition, business doesn't grow and consumers have less wealth and purchasing power. Government intervention only helps markets up to a certain point; eliminating deception and fraud, for example, is essential.

I don't know the exact specifics of what makes the UK market so uncompetitive, but it's clearly not a properly functioning retail market because it doesn't translate the wholesale cost of discs (which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30 US cents a disc for 8x media at the moment) into a good retail price. That may be due to cost of capital, or tax policies, or such mundane things as local regulations preventing large business development, as we have in some urban areas here. It should be clearer to you than me.

Oh, and a simple observation: the 34-40 cents/disc prices you hear about are sale prices. Many people who shop in electronics and office stores are not sensitive to prices to the point where they pick only the brand that is on sale. They will happily pay 80 cents/disc, which is a typical shelf price at the moment, to get their preferred brand. They try a brand that is perceived to be good-quality (such as Sony), find that it works well and stick with it. This is why you typically see a wide selection of media in one store. It allows the retailer to extract higher prices from a good portion of the buyers. Media that is on sale is designed to extend the customer base to include price-sensitive shoppers. Plus, it creates additional store traffic (who doesn't like weekly bargains?) that translates into more sales of higher-priced items. This is what allows low-priced accessories like discs to be sold under wholesale cost (8x DVDs have been discounted to 40 cents/disc since last October).