Related
My sister will be going to Singapore with work in the near future and I have asked her to look into buying a Diver's Watch, probably a Citizen.
Are there many fakes that she should aviod? How expensive are watches in Singapore, someone told me that if a watch is 100UKP then it will be 100SGD which is about one sixth of the price. Are the real thing really that much cheaper? I was thinking of buying something like a Citizen MA9034-21E if that helps.
The last time I check, the S$ and £ is at a 3:1 rate, and such £100 and S$100 is a 1/3 difference. Or you've just went to a bad money changer?
There are certainly fakes goods to be avoided. But the rules of thumb is, if it is too cheap, probably it is fake (NOTE: does not apply the other way round - i.e. if it is expensive, doesn't mean it is not fake).
ANYWAY, since the watch you are looking for has the function, it would be difficult to find a fake to it (i.e. you can't fake a function). Check at the citizen website and look at the instruction manual, and be familiarized with the function (i.e. what happen when what is pressed.. etc).
My advise is, avoid Orchard Road (especially Lucky Plaza) area where thats a main tourist attraction area where you tend to get hammered with high price (usually real goods though). Check the price you get in UK to put a cap on the price you are willing to pay in Singapore.
There is a place, a quiet place off tourist's list, is a nice place that I would recommend, sells lots of Citizen watches. I can't remmeber its name, I think it starts with a B, it is opposite (across the road) SimLim Square (i.e. Singapore largest IT building).
Anyway, check on eBay as well, there are tons of Singapore sellers on eBay sellings watches as well.. compare the price there.
Thanks for that chap, can anyone else offer some additional info? Current prices etc. would be most welcome, but I understand this would likely mean people going out of their way to help.
Hi all,
I'll be traveling to London soon, and I want to buy the Diamond 2 there (since it's cheaper).
Can someone please recommend a store to get it from (online store is irrelevant)? I need it to be unlocked and sim free, of course.
Thanks
Tottenham Court Road is your sest bet . Take a walk and do some bartering , you should ge the price you want
Will try that, thanks wardy!
sunrise digital is a good bet, but make sure you have some quotes from other shops first or from the internet.
i got 70 off my original diamond because of going there
Where is sunrise digital?
Just tried this same thing on Tottenham Court Rd two days ago and was quoted 450 pounds falling to 391 when vat recovered at Heathrow. Didnt bother with the haggling and didnt check other stores--this was the store very near to Oxford Street think it is called Technics or something like that.
I think Sunrise is further up the road if my memory serves me right. Much better off ordering by mail and getting it sent over for about 340 pounds.
But sent where? I don't live in London.
I bought a Diamond2 in Sunrise, Tottenham Court Road 3 weeks ago. I paid £420 including fitted Brando screensaver. I have decided not to keep it and it is for sale in the Marketplace. Much cheaper than in the shop. So I am am the cheapest place in London to buy a D2
Let me know if interested.
Thanks.
I get VAT off the retail price, so the price you are offering is a bit too much. Good luck though
I live in NYC so only hotel address in London and that wouldnt work (I checked). Some UK online companies seem willing to send to New York for 340 pounds or so which ain't bad if you ask me (100 pounds less than TC Road more or less). I think there are threads on the marketplace forum which give the names and websites of these firms.
can you plz post some websites?
http://www.clove.co.uk/
loadstone007 said:
I get VAT off the retail price, so the price you are offering is a bit too much. Good luck though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not if you read the whole thread
Tottenham court Road used to be quite competitive, but in the last couple of years I have never had prices matched to the cheapest on the internet, obviously because of their overheads. They are great if you need something urgently and don't mind paying, but they no longer match or better other stores prices, particularly internet stores.
[email protected] said:
Tottenham court Road used to be quite competitive, but in the last couple of years I have never had prices matched to the cheapest on the internet, obviously because of their overheads. They are great if you need something urgently and don't mind paying, but they no longer match or better other stores prices, particularly internet stores.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My own experience is that the cheaper internet stores never have them in stock (and don't always tell you that on the site) whereas supply in TCT Rd is usually plentiful.
Having just ventured forth, the big advantage of TC Rd to me coming from NYC on a short visit to London wasn't the price but the chance to handle the D2 physically and check it out. Very useful--I did and compared it to my HD and decided against but others may arrive at a different conclusion. As far as price goes, think the internet is still a better bet and seems to work well from those who have used it according to reports on other threads.
I live in DC, got mine yesterday (05-12-09 / 12-5-09 ) placed the order previous thursday.
purchased from Handtec (http://www.handtec.co.uk)
356.89 including shipping.
The only thing I was pretty unhappy about was that they shipped it using a fed ex envelope, and not a box. When I opened the envelope, things were bad enough to have me worried the device was borked. luckily enough everything is fine. I would have happily paid $10 more to have it shipped in a box.
Anyways, this was the cheapest i found online.
Are you sure, it is really cheaper in the UK?
When I read prices of 420 pounds, that is more than I have paid at amazon /Germany (450 euros).
Hey all, found an interesting article which shows how much it costs to make a Galaxy Note 4. Based on production and RRP, It seems that the profit margin for Samsung seems to be similar or higher than that of Apple's overpriced iPhone 6+.
http://www.ibtimes.com/samsung-gala...ive-produce-iphone-6-teardown-reveals-1700769
So according to this article the iPhone 6+ base model costs $242 to make and sells for 859 dollars USD whilst the Galaxy note 4 costs $260 to make and sells for approx $800 USD
Now i know there is packaging, distrubution, R&D to take care of as well as retailer profit margins, but it is pretty save to say they are making a huge profit per device atleast from first time adopters, and so they should.
Edit: I am not complaining, just pointing out that it is not just Apple that makes them cheap and sells them at a high cost.
that article is rubbish, the research & development is free of cost, right? everybody knows that
entrarya said:
that article is rubbish, the research & development is free of cost, right? everybody knows that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you even read the article?
americasteam said:
Did you even read the article?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or my post for that matter, which states that even with R&D costs the profit margin is quiet large. If they are aiming to sell a low amount of phones, let's say a million Note 4s, it would be reasonable to assume that 10$ a device would more than cover the 10 million dollar development cost which i just pulled out of my ass...why would it even cost 10 million USD to design a phone?
Also i presume when things are priced in the USA, they are priced excl VAT (or whatever the american equivelent is to british VAT), so yes there is 550USD worth of money to be made before R and D, packaging, distrubution and retailer profit margin.
In a competitive industry, the market drives the price not the cost of the item. If the cost is greater than the price the market is willing to pay the manufacturer may decide not to launch (unless they are still covering some fixed costs). If a consumer believes a device is earning an "excessive" profit they are free to find a phone that earns less profit. Or they can wait until the price drops. That is the beauty of the free market, the choice is yours.
And what about price od commercials, transport, and other?
Hey. If you want to build a comparable phone for cheaper for us, please feel free. At the end of the day, these companies produce a product that requires their capital and expertise to develop and build. We pay for the greater value and not for some equitable profit sharing with consumer equilibrium.
Unlike gaming consoles - Xbox 360/One Playstation 3/4 which sales their hardware at day one with loses that will be covered later on by the profit they'll make for games that they sell- in this industry sadly this is not the case and consumers are more then willing to pay double then a high end gaming console for the newest smartphone. Even though apps makes huge profits for the phone makers(let's say apple for example as they have their own phone and their own app store) they don't lower the costs as it's just extra earnings.
And you can definitely tell that the prices are way over priced when when companies such as Samsung, Apple and other big players in the phone market publish profits of BILLIONS a QUARTER.
hell, I'm not innocent as I buy these phones as well. But hopefully someday when the world will be floded with smartphones (including low markets/third world countries) and not only average to rich people will have them prices will drop.
tal123 said:
Unlike gaming consoles - Xbox 360/One Playstation 3/4 which sales their hardware at day one with loses that will be covered later on by the profit they'll make for games that they sell- in this industry sadly this is not the case and consumers are more then willing to pay double then a high end gaming console for the newest smartphone. Even though apps makes huge profits for the phone makers(let's say apple for example as they have their own phone and their own app store) they don't lower the costs as it's just extra earnings.
And you can definitely tell that the prices are way over priced when when companies such as Samsung, Apple and other big players in the phone market publish profits of BILLIONS a QUARTER.
hell, I'm not innocent as I buy these phones as well. But hopefully someday when the world will be floded with smartphones (including low markets/third world countries) and not only average to rich people will have them prices will drop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would say that the only way Samsung will be making money is by making this rather healthy profit margin on the phone, now we know it is quiet a decent margin. Who actually uses the Samsung app store? so no onwards profit there. All profits from Google Play will go straight to Google, so Samsung have just one time to make their cash from most people.
Given samsung recent financial outlook I think they could use as much profit as they can get.
Price equilibrium.
captainbirdseye86 said:
I would say that the only way Samsung will be making money is by making this rather healthy profit margin on the phone, now we know it is quiet a decent margin. Who actually uses the Samsung app store? so no onwards profit there. All profits from Google Play will go straight to Google, so Samsung have just one time to make their cash from most people.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I knew someone was going to jump and say that the funds are going to Google, and that's why I said that apps are billions worth of profits but just extra money(for Apple mostly and Google as well) however, a "healthy" profit it not a profit which they are making billions every quarter of it. That's insane. Most companies, even big ones, don't make those numbers in years, or ever for that matter.
They can cut the phones prices in half and still make great profits(that's what happens anyway when prices drop after a few months-so as you can see that's more than possible) but when a phone launches it has an insane price tag because these companies are based off making money and only money, and they have share holders to report to. They don't care about making a better phone, they only care about making money which results indirectly of us getting better phone bc that's the only way we will buy their product and not the competitioners.
Button line - they *can* lower the prices and make good profits, but they *won't* bc they want to make *more* money bc we are just willing to pay them those sums.
Welcome to capitalism.
For this logic, food in restaurant is also overprice. Even the burger in McDonald's is over price. Less than $2 of ingredients and they sell $5-$7.
WHERE THE HELL is the payment to staff and employees?
Look at ANY big companies balance sheet income statement and see how proportion of Administrative expense accounts for. Besides there are selling expense, and in production cost there are costs for factories and workers.
That's the aspect of Accounting, and in the aspect of Finance they have to take into account the interest (time value of money) on their investment,...
What the heck is materials cost? It's small in the cost structure of a company this type.
And if this is too complicated for you, this is more easier to understand. You guys think Samsung/Apple receive $500 for each of their phone? So if in one quarter SS sells 20mil flagship phones (Samsung easily can do), so the profit is $10 bill. However last quarter SS got the profit of over $4 bill. Where's nearly $6 bill? And need to say that the profit of Samsung also comes from middle to budget phones, tablets, TVs, semiconductors, display, fridge, washing machine,... So just for these 20mil flagship phones, if they sell at $250 lower price to "satisfy" some of you, they will lose $5 bill in revenue with (supposed to be) the same cost. And then they face loss. Basic maths.
i agree with hung remember samsung maintains factories too as well as build them (the latest one in development costs around 14 billion), of all the tech companies samsung outspends all of them. if they dont spend as much as others they can easily out-profit even apple every quarter (higher quarterly revenues) but like i said they build most of their parts thus they incur more costs too. i like to buy the notes simply because for the high price tag i truly believe that every year i have the best phone
hung2900 said:
For this logic, food in restaurant is also overprice. Even the burger in McDonald's is over price. Less than $2 of ingredients and they sell $5-$7.
WHERE THE HELL is the payment to staff and employees?
Look at ANY big companies balance sheet income statement and see how proportion of Administrative expense accounts for. Besides there are selling expense, and in production cost there are costs for factories and workers.
That's the aspect of Accounting, and in the aspect of Finance they have to take into account the interest (time value of money) on their investment,...
What the heck is materials cost? It's small in the cost structure of a company this type.
And if this is too complicated for you, this is more easier to understand. You guys think Samsung/Apple receive $500 for each of their phone? So if in one quarter SS sells 20mil flagship phones (Samsung easily can do), so the profit is $10 bill. However last quarter SS got the profit of over $4 bill. Where's nearly $6 bill? And need to say that the profit of Samsung also comes from middle to budget phones, tablets, TVs, semiconductors, display, fridge, washing machine,... So just for these 20mil flagship phones, if they sell at $250 lower price to "satisfy" some of you, they will lose $5 bill in revenue with (supposed to be) the same cost. And then they face loss. Basic maths.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you Hung, i am sure us mere simpletons on this forum much appreciate your valuable knowledge that you simplified just for us.
Please, teach us some more.
Not to mention the billion dollar bill in patent fees that Samsung calculated they owe Microsoft. Or their warranty and after sales support costs. The recognition engine for the handwriting features is licensed, royalties will be due. Codecs - not free. It all adds up, subtracting BoM from sales price is not how to calculate profit.
The OnePlus One can be so cheap because they mostly ignore the IP and support costs most non Chinese brand manufacturers pay.
- Research Cost
- Design cost
- Production Cost (material, labor and machineries plus Testing and QA/QC) - they dont do it in one shot. Based on test results, they might even go back as far as redesigning it and so on)
- Marketing cost (TV and print ads, Social Network, etc)
- Operating Cost - Samsung and any other companies have their core operating manpower. People doing the Human Resources, Accounting, Legal, Facility Maintenance, Warehousing/Inventory, Permits, etc. These groups are services groups and not profit center groups so they have to charge a portion of their operating expenses to each of those products to be sold.
There may be many more on top of that. Its not as simple as material and labor cost.
Good thing Samsung will be giving me back $200 with their phone trade in promotion.
What is all this argument about over priced note 4 and crapple fones?
lets get it straight, samdung's note series designs did not change much since day one. so no R&D costs there to recover.jus the hardware and other nuts and bolts. and TW,pfffff,it has been there since day 1,what else is new?????
What the consumers are actually paying for the is god damn knox counter and the equally obKNOXious app targeted at making sure the phone is secured/tampered free for enterprise users. other than alienating other dev, trying to be the king of douchebaggery, samdung is making damn sure to grab more money from consumers and making them pay for useless app (knox) which enterprise users shld pay.
as for crapple, they are known to sell overpriced everything since day one. money grabbing is not something new to crapple,its in their blood and every other else they do. consumers pay tons of dollars for their so called crapple environment and of course with each ios updates, they are making sure jailbreakers find it increasingly harder to get root access,thus ever raising in the game of douchebaggery.
you all can argue about overpriced this and that, end of the day, if you go buy their fone, you are jus validating their douchebaggery and making damn sure they trample on you when they deny your warranty when u root.
samdung is already fast becoming an overall king of douchebag, it will not be long before they catch up with crapple if consumers keep buying their knox infected fones.
The pricing for these phones unlocked is ridiculous. ANd if you want it cheap you are binded under contract. That is why I have cricket. Got my awesome ZTE phone for 160 with no contracts. I have a friend that is still paying for his phone plus 120 dollars each month on phone bills. That is way too much!
teknoflipp said:
The pricing for these phones unlocked is ridiculous. ANd if you want it cheap you are binded under contract. That is why I have cricket. Got my awesome ZTE phone for 160 with no contracts. I have a friend that is still paying for his phone plus 120 dollars each month on phone bills. That is way too much!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree:thumbup:
You don't want to know how much the Marketing costs.....
The campaign for the iPhone 6, for example, cost Apple a meagre 850 million dollars. The one for the S6 was somewhere around 600 million.
Now guess who has to pay for that...
Not to mention, do you have any idea how much money is paid in patent fees to other companies for every device? Of your 700 quid phone, 400 quid goes to about 60 different companies for the use of about 600 patents. 200 alone are Microsoft's.
Then there's development costs. Loads of prototypes, trial and error.... And phones don't drop out of the sky, the developers, engineers, designers, r&d staff and everyone else involved has to get paid, too.
Then there's psychology. They tested this in the USA. Give people the option between two identical phones, one for 300 quid and one for 700 quid, and 93% will buy the 700 quid one.
Why? Image. They think a pricy phone makes them appear(and feel) more rich and accomplished. And because of that, they feel a cheaper phone is of a lower quality.
People are incredibly gullible and susceptible when it comes to outside appearances. They'd rather waste 400 quid so they can boast to everyone about how their phone was so very expensive. It makes them feel better.
How many times have we heard this argument: "You're just hating on Apple because you're too poor to buy an iPhone".
And that's why we pay ridiculous amounts for a smartphone: because that's what the masses want to pay.
Sent From My Samsung Galaxy Note 3 N9005 Using Tapatalk
Well, the poster above nailed it.
You should also add more factors:
Screen resolution is a gimmick. If you have more than 250PPI or 300PPI, you wont really notice the pixels, unless you facehug your phone.
Performance. From the qualcom S400, S600, S800 lineup, you will probably be set forever. Unless you are a gamer, you dont feel the difference.
Smartphone camera. Get a DSLR, you will do better pictures and get it cheaper instead of paying more for nothing.
RAM is the only good thing about new phones. Having more RAM is always better because you cannot expect the guys who develop apps to be careful enough to do the most basic thing and remove the most dangerous memory leaks or their apps eating huge chunks of memory.
Yeah marketing costs, but there are always phones with good price, quality and performance. Think about some Xiaomi, Lenovo, Jiayu....
In the UK carphone warehouse sell payg phones but their handsets are unlocked to all networks! Just have to buy a top up when you purchase the handset then you can use any sim, no extortionate sim-free prices!
Is it just me or is there any other fellow Aussie wondering why the Mate 20 Pro is A$1,599 and NZ$1,422 (equiv. A$1,310). AND, NZ get the Emerald Green which I'd choose over Midnight Blue!
AU: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/phones/Outright-Mobile-Handsets/huawei/huawei-mate-20-pro-midnight-blue/343382/
NZ: https://www.jbhifi.co.nz/phones/Outright-Mobile-Handsets/huawei/huawei-mate-20-pro-emerald-green/352821/
What's even worse, NZ GST is 15% and AU it's 10%..... (both the above include GST in their price - I checked)
Might take a holiday....
ero69 said:
Is it just me or is there any other fellow Aussie wondering why the Mate 20 Pro is A$1,599 and NZ$1,422 (equiv. A$1,310). AND, NZ get the Emerald Green which I'd choose over Midnight Blue!
AU: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/phones/Outright-Mobile-Handsets/huawei/huawei-mate-20-pro-midnight-blue/343382/
NZ: https://www.jbhifi.co.nz/phones/Outright-Mobile-Handsets/huawei/huawei-mate-20-pro-emerald-green/352821/
What's even worse, NZ GST is 15% and AU it's 10%..... (both the above include GST in their price - I checked)
Might take a holiday....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The nominal prices might seem odd to you, but the prices are based on complex economic calculations. Different country means different price levels, different average incomes and living cost etc.. Spending NZ$1400 in New Zealand might be very similar to spending AU$1600 in Australia (looking at how much you can buy with those respective amounts of money). Meaning just looking at the current exchange rate of both currencies does not give you valid info about the justification of different prices in different countries.
Also there can be numerous other reasons for it to be more expensive like varying coporate tax, customs, bureaucracy etc.. (one thing that comes to my mind is increased transportation cost across Australia....)
PS: In Germany the Mate 20 Pro is 999€ which equals AU$1600 (but it includes 20% tax). The average income is 3000€/month before tax (like 1800€/month after tax) essentially 999€ means more than half your monthly income. From my time in Australia I remember making a lot more money (2600/week , 1800/week after tax - roughly 7000 a month after tax). Buying the phone for 1600 would cost me a lot less when seen as a percentage of my monthly income. (which makes the phone much cheaper although the nominal price is the same). I realise that the average income in AUS is less than what I earned but i think 5000/month after tax is reasonable....even then buying the phone merely means sacrificing 32% of whats available each month compared to roughly 55% in Germany.
Y'all need some American friends to mail you stuff without the crapload of taxes added.
Nicelysedated said:
Y'all need some American friends to mail you stuff without the crapload of taxes added.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Problem is: what you dont pay in tax the company adds to its profit margin... essentially we all end up paying too damn much.
0alfred0 said:
Problem is: what you dont pay in tax the company adds to its profit margin... essentially we all end up paying too damn much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still, better to be the one paying 1000$ USD than $1300. I travel to Ukraine quite often and it's insane that the same phone there is hundreds more than America. A Mate 20 Pro would be like 5months of average income there....
Nicelysedated said:
Still, better to be the one paying 1000$ USD than $1300. I travel to Ukraine quite often and it's insane that the same phone there is hundreds more than America. A Mate 20 Pro would be like 5months of average income there....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, but in those countries "average income" does not mean as much as there is almost no middle - just the rich and the poor... (sadly the west is heading towards the same direction). So huawei only cares about what the rich can effort...
For all others they create sub brands like honor or xiaomi poco or oppo realme... each brand and its marketing directed to skim as much consumer surplus as possible and profit from each income group as much as they can.
Yes. The price is a joke. This is the price I'd expect when the next iphone and S10 are priced around $2000....
Nicelysedated said:
Y'all need some American friends to mail you stuff without the crapload of taxes added.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ha! Maybe you now know the real reason the Mate 20 pro is not being sold in US!
mscion said:
Ha! Maybe you now know the real reason the Mate 20 pro is not being sold in US!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just out if curiosity, if you had a friend mail you one from the states as a "gift", would you have to pay taxes?
Nicelysedated said:
Just out if curiosity, if you had a friend mail you one from the states as a "gift", would you have to pay taxes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it really depends on your law. I'm from Venezuela and we have a limit to such gifts that are not taxable, don't really remember though what is the sum. The easiest, but no the cheapest way is to have a friend to bring it to you, that way you won't have to pay tax. Any way, the cost of living in Australia is pretty low, can't you afford to but a phone locally? If we are to compare it with the real cost of living in Venezuela, it should be good enough.