Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I'm pleased to see the PCB products on the EU store have just dropped quite dramatically.. I'm pretty sure nothing has been finalised as of yet but this is a much more reasonable price. Very happy!

Some examples:
Vagabond from £320 down to £290
Einstein from around £530 down to £420
AB800 from £320 down to £280

!!!

Hi Glen.

It is still early days for the EU store, as with the AU store we constantly monitor pricing. There appears to have been some discontent in this area, people need to understand that this equipment does not get to Europe for free in addition the UK has quite a high tax rate, 17.5% VAT and 4.5% customs duties this adds over a 1/5th to the US price and swallows up any exchange rate advantage. We then have to cover credit card charges, bank fees accountants fees and the list goes on.

Australian Photographers are at an even greater disadvantage with not just exchange rate but also freight, they have turned a negative into a positive and embraced the fact that someone has taken the time and effort to bring them a great product range.

Both Stephen, myself and Paul have spent a great deal of time bringing this project to fruition and I hope that EU photographers can look past pricing and appreciate the quality and support they receive from Paul and his team.

Hi Colin,

Personally, I though the pricing before the decreases were understandable and also reasonable in comparison to the available alternatives in the UK.

I'm extremely grateful to all of you for putting the work into EU distribution.

A couple of questions if I may:

Will orders be shipped from a UK warehouse?

Which couriers or postal services are you planning on using?

Cheers

T.

Hi T

Thanks for your comments.

We will be primarily using TNT for the larger packages and European Orders and Royal Mail for the smaller UK shipments.

Due to the numerous shapes sizes and weights the shipping on the site is only a quote, we will contact customers if shipping is going to more than that quoted.

Colin.

Thanks Colin.

I've noticed that the online delivery estimates have increased, quite dramatically.

Is this to compensate for the overall price decrease that has recently been implemented?

I can send a private message with the figures, rather than post them here?

Can you please send an email to info@paulcbuff.eu.com

Thanks
Colin.

I think the prices are very reasonable at the moment.. and before hand they weren't so bad either. You have my word for it.. I will be placing an order when I have the money.
Can I just add.. a lot of rubbish is being said over on fredmiranda and whoever it is, is NOT myself. If I was able to sign up over there I'd be defending you. What you're doing is helping many aspiring young (myself) and old photographers over here in the UK.
I hope all goes smoothly Colin.

I've been trying to get this through to the complainers on FM and a few flickr forums. It just takes a while. They don't understand that they're comparing direct marketing prices vs. distributed prices (which include VAT/duties/shipping/storage) :roll:
Seems to be mostly resolved now...

Is it possible to email the links to the posts to info@paulcbuff.eu.com

I would suggest comparing price and performance, features and customer service to other monolights available in your region and making buying decisions based on that - just like you would in deciding between, say, Profoto, Bron, Hensel, Elinchrom, Chinese lights, Toyotas, Corvettes or anything else. We're not offering our equipment in Europe because we want to be a global giant . . . we are doing it because Europeans have been asking and asking for us to do it.

I would add that buying Einstein makes far more sense for Europeans than AB or WL because of Einstein's universal voltage capability and, of course, it's very advanced performance and features.