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It's funny you mention this. I worked at an e-commerce store that shipped a lot internationally. In the beginning, we had calculations for all of the tariffs
by paulhauggis 15y ago
It's funny you mention this.
I worked at an e-commerce store that shipped a lot internationally. In the beginning, we had calculations for all of the tariffs and taxes required to ship and added that to the end (ups would allow us to pay for this up-front to make it easier for our customers).
Customers would bitch at us all the time about how our prices were too high. We changed it so they had to pay for all of this separately (and so they knew that we weren't the ones increasing prices) and the bitching stopped.
It's one of the reasons I don't want taxes hidden on goods sold in the US. Because people won't think about it and won't really know when the government starts raising taxes.
They will just assume it's the big, evil, companies overcharging.
It's happening right now with gas. Many states have additional taxes/gallon and people just assume it's the stations.
- eru 15y agoIn Europe taxes (like VAT and those on petrol) are usually included in quoted prices, and people are quite aware of them.
- rmc 15y agoNot really. In Ireland & the UK, VAT in the region of (22%ish or 17%ish), prices of goods in shops and online are quoted 'VAT inclusive' (likewise petrol), it's only 'trade', i.e. companies that sell products to other business (who then have to charge VAT to the general public) are sold 'ex VAT'.
- eru 15y agoOh, that `trade' exemption also applies to Germany. I think that's a common consequence of VAT systems, that only the consumer is quoted inclusive prices.
- nigelsampson 15y agoI think this is exacerbated by the various levels of tax in the US, because not everyone knows which taxes apply it makes it difficult to compare prices objectively. In NZ GST is always 15% and always included but because everyone knows this it makes comparison easy.
- keeperofdakeys 15y agoReally the problem is not having one universal sales tax rate. Here in Australia we have one universal rate, so its included in all prices.