Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi,

I' have been reading the forums for a few weeks but this is my first post here

I've been interested in purchasing products from this company for a while but being in London my only option was purchasing from Australia, so I was really happy when I found out that a UK distributor had been appointed and I hoped that the pricing would be reasonable.

However, as it turned out, initial pricing was set at around 1.5x the US pricing plus VAT on top which basically made PCB products a non-starter when compared to competing products.

This has now been adjusted for some major items but I would like to know if it will be adjusted for other too, specifically the PLM system.

Here are three examples:

The 86" Silver PLM (PLM86U-S) is £76 before VAT, which compares very badly with the $74.95 that the unit costs direct from PCB and is an uplift of about 50%.

The White 86" PLM (PLM86U-W) is £50 before VAT compared to $44.95, an uplift of almost 65%.

The 86" Black Outer Cover (PLM86-BOC) is £31 before VAT compared to $23.95, an uplift of over 91%.

On top of that we have to add any shipping costs and then VAT on the total at 17.5% (and this is expected to rise soon now under the new government).

I look at these pricing differences and the words of John McEnroe come to mind.

Is PCB UK serious about going to market with these prices or can we expect them to be revised downwards in the near future? These price differences really start to add up when looking at purchasing multiple items.

Thanks

Paul's business model has always been to sell direct to keep costs down, part of the agreement was that we do not expect high trade discounts and as such do not purchase our stock at cost but at more or less the US price. As you are aware that VAT and Customs duties add 1/5th to the cost and swallows up any exchange rate advantage, we then have to cover the additional invisible costs that are associated with this sort of operation such as freight, bank charges and the list goes on.

With regards to the PLM's the shipping cost on them is high due to the fact that although they are light they have a big dimensional weight (which basically means if something is light they charge for its size), this then adds to the cost. This also applies to softboxes.

Our aim is to keep our pricing as close as possible to the $US price as possible taking into account these factors.

The store has been live now for about 2 weeks and we have had nearly 30 orders, I hope you can look past the pricing and appreciate the products and support you will receive from us and Paul and his staff in America.

Colin.

Will UK store rock 5% accessory discount for every flashunit you buy?

Pricing is little higher than importing it directly from USA after customs, taxes and shipping. But if something breaks you are in big trouble. I rather pay extra for actually support than having to rely fully that the product always will work. Also what you if first buy an item from USA then a month later want to buy a reflector? The shipping costs will be massive.

Very very glad to hear about a UK distributor. Recently ordered quite a list from the Australian outlet however I find myself travelling to the UK on a regular basis. Extremely excited at being able to buy a vagabond and storing it in the UK.. No more lugging huge packs around or problems with Airport security!

I can fully appreciate the additional cost to sell in both Australia and the UK, unfortunately these are things we must deal with. Im sure the prices will drop a little once things begin to stabilise. Kudos to all the hard work you guys are doing to bring these great products to us, muchly appreciated!

Andy

Hello Colin,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I'm very aware of all the costs involved in import, shipping, warehousing, resale, bank charges, etc, etc, etc - I've done all these things for several years.

However I am still very disappointed with the pricing for items like the PLMs and their accessories (and now that I've looked at it the same goes for the softbox and grid pricing).

I don't think that the PLMs themselves are that large, I believe that Paul gave some folded dimensions elsewhere and it seemed to me that you could probably ship 144, 86" PLMs in a 48"x48"x48" cube straight from the factory in China.

Anyway, I'm not the one running your business and your prices have to make sense to you.

Thanks again.

PLM prices look quite good to me.. Go and check out the price of something reasonably comparable such as the Elinchrom Deep Octa..Your eyeballs will fall out of your head. There is a YouTube somewhere comparing the results of these two and they aint that much different.

Edit: YouTube Links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlQXB8omtyo Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feFATdwk ... re=related Part 2

Looks like it does put output more light than the octabank. Im just happy that we have the option of buying these in Australia and the UK.

You are trying to compare a product sold in the USA with no middlemen or taxes on low shipping costs to the same product with air freight to UK, import fees and duties and a middleman who has to have a reasonable markup. I suggest comparing UK Buff prices to UK Euro products . . . that's what your'e buying. I think you'll find that in spite of the logistics advantage of a EU product in EU you'll still get more for your money with most Buff products. Price an Elinchrom RX600 or Hensel or whatever, and compare to an Einstein and consider what it does and what you pay for it.

Unfortunately not. The prices I quoted earlier were without Taxes at 17.5% but may include import duty at anywhere from 0% - 4.5% depending on the item in question.

If you exclude taxes as I did the question must be why are we paying from 50% to over 91% more for non-electronic goods?

I am very familiar with importing goods into the UK and know what this entails and the costs from a business perspective. I also import goods for personal use and I am aware of the costs of that too.

Now that the uplift on the flashes has been reduced from about 1.5x to 1.25x over the US prices (excluding taxes) I think that the flash units do stand a good chance here. However my original post wasn't about the cost of the flash units but about the cost of the light modifiers and once people start adding these things up, other brands may well seem like a better buy.

Let me illustrate it with an example based on the total cost of some items that I am actually looking to buy right now or to be more precise, some light modifiers that I would buy today if I could get them:

UK price including UK VAT is £540.55 which is just about $800.
Excluding the UK VAT it's about $680.
Buying the same items in the USA would cost $386.40.
However for many people in the UK looking to buy this equipment the cost would be $800 rather than $386 because they will have to pay the VAT.

$800 vs $386 or
$680 vs $386

No matter how I look at it something is not right here.

Subsequent purchases would only compound the problem.

Sorry I totally dis-agree. You are taking a UK price and then converting it back to US$ and then saying that it is expensive.

In the US a 64 inch silver PLM costs $59.95, in the UK that same PLM costs $69 ex VAT which is more or less $$ for Pound.

Now I will give you my calculation:-

PLM 64 silver
US Buy 59.95
UK Buy Price: 39.44 GBP
Markup 10.00 GBP
Freight component to ship from US 18GBP
Credit Card Fess about 2 GBP

Total = 69GBP ex VAT, but this does not include any customs duties.

The Chancellor Of The Exchequer makes more money out of it than we do maybe you should highlight your concerns to him.

I take it you would want us to sell a PLM at 45 GBP. That is all well and good in theory but in practice it is not possible unless you wish you share how you would make it happen.

Is the pricing on the EU store including or excluding VAT?