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Even cars: there is a huge business of people buying up brand new luxury cars in the US, then immediately putting them on a boat to China. The manufacturers hat
by camhenlin 8y ago
Even cars: there is a huge business of people buying up brand new luxury cars in the US, then immediately putting them on a boat to China. The manufacturers hate it, and try to write sales contracts to prevent it, but it's so lucrative that it constantly attracts new people into the game
- giarc 8y agoIllegal Exporter Ordered To Pay Dealership $1.6 Million Dollars For Selling Dodge Rams To China https://jalopnik.com/illegal-exporter-ordered-to-pay-dealership-1-6-million-1788654629 https://jalopnik.com/illegal-exporter-ordered-to-pay-dealers...
- adetrest 8y agoA dodge ram, of all cars. Why go to such length to own a car that isn't really good looking or remarkable in any way?
- pbh101 8y agoIts remarkable if its the only one on the block, or in the whole city: I was walking down a quiet residential street in Europe once and was surprised to see a giant red pickup sitting in the driveway. Looked incredibly out of place.
- giarc 8y agoI had a friend in England who said the big thing to do when you "made it" was to import a Cadillac Escalade from the States. You could tell because they were left hand drive. Here in North America, Escalades don't seem like such a big deal anymore.
- ams6110 8y agoWhy would manufacturers hate it?
- newnewpdro 8y agoPresumably because the manufacturers pay tariffs and other expenses in the course of legally bringing vehicles to foreign countries. Now they're competing with folks evading those overheads, on selling their own product, which they've already paid to to bring stock of legally.
- Consultant32452 8y agoI'm still confused. The people doing this are presumably paying retail for those vehicles, so the manufacturer and dealership got their profits out of it. What do they care if someone skirts taxes as long as they made their profit on the retail sale?
- wtvanhest 8y agoMost businesses price discriminate by geography. A car manufacturer may charge $25,000 USD for a car in the US, but $35,000 USD for a very similar car in Asia. Brands carry different values depending on market. The car company does not want to lose out on that $10,000/car surplus.
- newnewpdro 8y agoThis isn't an area I'm experienced with, but there seems to be some rather obvious problems and I suspect there are far more than I'm considering in this brief thought exercise. The price of the illegally imported equivalents will be substantially lower than those legally imported by the manufacturer. This will have the effect of driving down the FMV of the vehicle in the region. But if the manufacturer can't afford to match that FMV because of legal trade and transport overheads, the effect will be reduced sales of the vehicle in the region overall, because the illegal channels obviously can't operate on a large enough scale to 100% replace the legal channel from the manufacturer's perspective. The illegal channel doesn't have to (and won't) operate at legal-replacement scales to impact the region's perception of the vehicle's FMV. Also consider what effect it may have on potential buyers interested in buying legally, but exposed to news of the imported brand being so overpriced and so desirable that there's a substantial illicit market emerging to fulfill that demand. The honest consumer might be completely turned off by this, thinking their new car may be a theft target because it's this desirable import brand people are committing risky trade crimes just to sell as new in the country. The situation seems likely to harm the overall sales volume for the region.