It is long known that United States of America has a relatively huge privilege when it comes to LEGO pricing and investment potentials. They get the best deals and the best retail prices. While I will mostly discuss Europe pricing compared to USA, I added ''world'' to the entry title simply because every country has the same problem.
1.00 U.S. dollar = 0.749625187 Euros (€)
If we just look a couple of late price comparison:
9474-1: The Battle of Helm's Deep
US price: 129.99 $
EU price: 139.99 € (186.794 $)
79108-1: Stagecoach Escape
US price: 29.99 $
EU price: 39.99 € (53.3602 $)
Now the EU usual tax value is around 20% (+/- a few percent points) depending on country. There is no good reason for pricing in examples above. While Helm's Deep look almost reasonable, the Lone ranger (one of the best sets of the theme) is at 100 % and more increase for Europe retail with only 20 % extra tax.
TLG obviously dislikes Europe(World) purchasing their products considering the mark-up which is rather extreme. What is more worrying is the fact that TLG is willing to do nothing to bring it more up to par of USA pricing and rather gives a half-baked answers regarding the problematic raised by us common buyers.
As a sign of protect I have stopped purchasing any LEGO from European shops (excluding Amazon occasionally) unless the set is at 33% + discounted. And even then that is a rather low satisfaction considering that at 33% off EU retail that usually means US retail.
I encourage all Europeans to actively push TLG with weekly questions concerning the pricing so that we might, some day (or maybe our kids) have a fair price.
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