5 ms·

What are the constraints that are blocking wider EU availability? Right now, in Europe it's only available in a handful of countries (5 of 27). I'm in Spain, a

What are the constraints that are blocking wider EU availability? Right now, in Europe it's only available in a handful of countries (5 of 27). I'm in Spain, and I see I can spec a perfect machine and get it delivered just over the border in France, but I can't get the same thing delivered here just a couple of hours away, which is very surprising! My understanding was the single market & customs union etc should make going from 1 to N EU countries pretty easy. Is this due to smoe regulatory issues, or needing to organize shipping differently for every country, or waiting to include an ñ key, or something else? Right now, I'm very seriously looking at ordering one, renting a PO box in France and shipping the laptop here myself, which seems a bit ridiculous.

908B64B197 4y ago
> My understanding was the single market & customs union etc should make going from 1 to N EU countries pretty easy. Sadly, every country insist on doing everything else his own special snowflake way. There would have to be a lot more harmonization for it to be that easy.
sschueller 4y ago
Will Switzerland ever be able to order them with a Swiss German Keyboard?
dathinab 4y ago
The problem is (my guess) Logistics is hard. Amazon might make it look easy but it really isn't (and Amazon is not available in all EU countries either!). Logistics is more then just shipping, but also returns, repairs, availability, shipping time, shipping costs, where and how to keep stock. And this points affect each other, i.e. they might not have enough supply to sell to the whole EU market etc. Lastly while there is a free marked in the EU if I remember correctly there are still some differences when importing things from outside into the EU depending on the country of entry. Like how to fill forms and which companies you can work with (for what prices) in given country.
- mhitza 4y ago
  What do you mean by "Amazon is not available in all EU countries". Do you mean like a country specific TLD? Because that is true, but order and delivery is not a problem from any EU country as far as I know.
  - oblio 4y ago
    If it's not localized, it might as well not exist for 95% of customers in a country.
    - mhitza 4y ago
      I expect that 20-40 years old, are able to use an English language website. Thus your made up 95% is extremely high.
      - oblio 4y ago
        Yeah, until you hit the parts of the UI that aren't translated from German or have to return stuff and the vendor only communicates in German and the auto-generated emails are in German and the vendor feedback list is in German and th4 reviews are in German... They're not ordering from amazon.com (US), they're probably ordering from amazon.de with a thin layer of English translations + autotranslations.
        mhitza 4y ago
        If you're setting your preferred language in English on the website, all further on interaction should be in English. (BTW they have multiple language dropdowns that I didn't even highlight because I'm sure old generations do not know how to use those). Lack of English translated terms isn't something I've personally encountered, and for the reviews it's true I scroll a bit further down the page to see the English reviews from .com I've used .de very often in the past, and when I stopped using Amazon, as said in reply to someone else https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31445473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31445473 , quality dropped (among other downsides) when they allowed third party sellers and those flood the product listing pages. With those specific suppliers (and anything that isn't fulfilled by Amazon), I expect to be possible to have the issues you're referring to. But I wouldn't clump that together with Amazon not being available in some EU countries.
loginatnine 4y ago
I'll copy paste a comment I made here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31096793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31096793 but I'm also guessing logistics. They gave a IMO good overview of the difficulties of selling to a new country in a previous post : > With our supply improving, you may be wondering when you can order a laptop if you’re outside of the US and Canada. We selected and are bringing up our worldwide warehousing and fulfillment partner, which is one very key part of the equation, but it takes quite a lot more than that to enable a complete experience in each country. Picking Germany as one example, we need German language keyboards, a Type F power cable, in-box paperwork and labeling in German, localization for the Framework website, support documentation, and checkout flow, support for local payment methods, calculation of Euro prices and taxes, accounting support for German income, creation of legally sound Terms of Sale, Privacy, and Warranty policies for Germany, CE certifications, a local Authorized Representative to back up the certifications, determination of HS codes and tariffs, an Importer of Record to be able to deliver duty paid, German-language in-time-zone customer support, reverse logistics and RMA support for returns and repairs, region-specific sourcing of off the shelf memory and storage, trial builds of German laptops prior to production, and back-end ERP infrastructure to tie all of this together. That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually a drastically simplified summary. https://frame.work/ca/en/blog/scaling-up-infrastructure https://frame.work/ca/en/blog/scaling-up-infrastructure
- codethief 4y ago
  I'd say they need none of that. Not only is barely anything of that a legal requirement in the EU, it's also a waste of money and resources to set this up in every country when you're mainly addressing pro users and tinkerers. I bought & imported a Supernote e-ink tablet from China the other day. The manufacturer offers none of the things mentioned above, heck their support team barely speaks English (but god knows they're trying!). Still everyone on Reddit loves them because they 1) produce a killer product, 2) provide great support when needed (e.g. send you a replacement or fix bugs), and 3) respond to community requests and regularly roll out software updates with fantastic new features.
  - jotm 4y ago

908B64B197 4y ago

> My understanding was the single market & customs union etc should make going from 1 to N EU countries pretty easy. Sadly, every country insist on doing everything else his own special snowflake way. There would have to be a lot more harmonization for it to be that easy.

sschueller 4y ago

Will Switzerland ever be able to order them with a Swiss German Keyboard?

dathinab 4y ago

The problem is (my guess) Logistics is hard. Amazon might make it look easy but it really isn't (and Amazon is not available in all EU countries either!). Logistics is more then just shipping, but also returns, repairs, availability, shipping time, shipping costs, where and how to keep stock. And this points affect each other, i.e. they might not have enough supply to sell to the whole EU market etc. Lastly while there is a free marked in the EU if I remember correctly there are still some differences when importing things from outside into the EU depending on the country of entry. Like how to fill forms and which companies you can work with (for what prices) in given country.

mhitza 4y ago
What do you mean by "Amazon is not available in all EU countries". Do you mean like a country specific TLD? Because that is true, but order and delivery is not a problem from any EU country as far as I know.
- oblio 4y ago
  If it's not localized, it might as well not exist for 95% of customers in a country.
  - mhitza 4y ago
    I expect that 20-40 years old, are able to use an English language website. Thus your made up 95% is extremely high.
    - oblio 4y ago
      Yeah, until you hit the parts of the UI that aren't translated from German or have to return stuff and the vendor only communicates in German and the auto-generated emails are in German and the vendor feedback list is in German and th4 reviews are in German... They're not ordering from amazon.com (US), they're probably ordering from amazon.de with a thin layer of English translations + autotranslations.
      - mhitza 4y ago
        If you're setting your preferred language in English on the website, all further on interaction should be in English. (BTW they have multiple language dropdowns that I didn't even highlight because I'm sure old generations do not know how to use those). Lack of English translated terms isn't something I've personally encountered, and for the reviews it's true I scroll a bit further down the page to see the English reviews from .com I've used .de very often in the past, and when I stopped using Amazon, as said in reply to someone else https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31445473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31445473 , quality dropped (among other downsides) when they allowed third party sellers and those flood the product listing pages. With those specific suppliers (and anything that isn't fulfilled by Amazon), I expect to be possible to have the issues you're referring to. But I wouldn't clump that together with Amazon not being available in some EU countries.

loginatnine 4y ago

I'll copy paste a comment I made here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31096793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31096793 but I'm also guessing logistics. They gave a IMO good overview of the difficulties of selling to a new country in a previous post : > With our supply improving, you may be wondering when you can order a laptop if you’re outside of the US and Canada. We selected and are bringing up our worldwide warehousing and fulfillment partner, which is one very key part of the equation, but it takes quite a lot more than that to enable a complete experience in each country. Picking Germany as one example, we need German language keyboards, a Type F power cable, in-box paperwork and labeling in German, localization for the Framework website, support documentation, and checkout flow, support for local payment methods, calculation of Euro prices and taxes, accounting support for German income, creation of legally sound Terms of Sale, Privacy, and Warranty policies for Germany, CE certifications, a local Authorized Representative to back up the certifications, determination of HS codes and tariffs, an Importer of Record to be able to deliver duty paid, German-language in-time-zone customer support, reverse logistics and RMA support for returns and repairs, region-specific sourcing of off the shelf memory and storage, trial builds of German laptops prior to production, and back-end ERP infrastructure to tie all of this together. That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually a drastically simplified summary. https://frame.work/ca/en/blog/scaling-up-infrastructure https://frame.work/ca/en/blog/scaling-up-infrastructure

codethief 4y ago
I'd say they need none of that. Not only is barely anything of that a legal requirement in the EU, it's also a waste of money and resources to set this up in every country when you're mainly addressing pro users and tinkerers. I bought & imported a Supernote e-ink tablet from China the other day. The manufacturer offers none of the things mentioned above, heck their support team barely speaks English (but god knows they're trying!). Still everyone on Reddit loves them because they 1) produce a killer product, 2) provide great support when needed (e.g. send you a replacement or fix bugs), and 3) respond to community requests and regularly roll out software updates with fantastic new features.
- jotm 4y ago