UK Pound has crashed dived

[Rosamunda]

For example:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-PLAYSTATIO ... 467&sr=1-1
£279.99

http://www.verkkokauppa.com/
Sony PlayStation 3 80GB
Seuraavan sukupolven superkonsoli ja CD-/DVD-/Blu-Ray -soitin samassa! Teräväpiirtopelit ja -elokuvat, erinomainen tallennusväline musiikille ja kuvalle sekä ainutlaatuinen verkkoyhteisö.
lisätietoa

398.80 € (quantity in stock is zero)

[sinikala]

We picked up 4 bottles of Faustino V at £4.99 each at the start of the month. Alko price €15,49

A fiver a bottle, that must surely have been on (very) special offer?

Special compared to Finland perhaps. Compared also to Cyprus where I paid nearly €20 for a bottle last Summer. However, Tesco were offering Faustino V for under £20 for half a case.

That said, such "special" offers are, in the current economic climate, rather common.

[brkumar]

Netbooks is another... Acer one Aspire A150 £200 in England vs. €350 in Finland.

I am in the market for a netbook. The pricing difference is just too tempting. Do you know any retailers in UK/Germany shipping to Finland ? I guess if the product is shipped from UK, we should worry about the electrical plug as well .

[raamv]

I ve always found ebay to be my friend...

[simon]

Is there anyway to buy electrical goods from the uk then?

Im after a new tv and on amazon.co.uk the same sony bravia is €150 cheaper than the onoff sale price but amazon dont deleiver outside of the uk.

Also would there be anything to consider if I were to buy a tv from the uk other than the plug?

[Richard]

Is there anyway to buy electrical goods from the uk then?

Im after a new tv and on amazon.co.uk the same sony bravia is €150 cheaper than the onoff sale price but amazon dont deleiver outside of the uk.

Also would there be anything to consider if I were to buy a tv from the uk other than the plug?

The UK and Finland use a different PAL standard so a UK TV doesn't work here, unless something changed with the move to digital that I didn't notice.

That aside, by the time you take shipping into account which will eat most of the saving on an item as bulky and heavy as a TV, is it worth the hassle
of potentially needing to ship it back to the UK for warranty repair/replacement?

[SteveS]

I bought a Playstation 3 from Amazon for Christmas

It came with a free movie, game, remote control and HDMI cable for €360 including delivery. It was at the house 4 days after I ordered it.

Some things Amazon deliver to Europe and some things they don't. For instance GPS machines they don't, games stuff they do

Only thing is that Amazon are a bit sneaky with the VAT. When it comes time to pay they add 22% tax instead of 15% if they are going to deliver to Finland.

I don't mind too much as it is still much cheaper. My boss also wanted one for christmas but he wasn't 'brave' enough to buy from Amazon. He went to Verkkokauppa and paid €399. The next day he was asking if I had a spare cable and could he borrow a movie and a game to try it out...

Just read the last post. Virtually all televisions now sold in Europe are now multi standard/region. It is just not worth the manufacturers effort making separate versions for separate regions.

When my Mother moved to France some know-it-all told her, that her new LCD television wouldn't work in France (Secam) so 'offered to buy it cheap'. The person picked it up within 5 minutes of telling her that. Later when I found out I went mad as it was a multi standard set

Best to check the TV's spec sheet before buying. Saying that I've found TV's are pretty cheap around here lately as well..

[Mook]

The UK and Finland use a different PAL standard so a UK TV doesn't work here, unless something changed with the move to digital that I didn't notice.

Well PAL is the system for analogue transmission, so it's mostly irrelevant now.

Well, most digiboxes connect to the TV using SCART, so there's no PAL involved anymore. And in most digiboxes you can configure what flavour the output is. I s'pose that a tv with digi terrestrial _should_ work here without a problem.

Anyhow, the big question is:

Can anyone recomend a decent UK electrical shop that'll send stuff to Finland???

[meplusthree]

I bought Humax pvr digibox a few years ago from uk. It works fine but there are one or two features/functions that dont work as expected due to some oddities about the Finnish digital system eg channel numbers start at 600 and you cant change them so YLE 1 is chan 601. Company I used was HIWAYHIFI (dot com) service was ok although packaging was not that good.

[Rosamunda]

Only thing is that Amazon are a bit sneaky with the VAT. When it comes time to pay they add 22% tax instead of 15% if they are going to deliver to Finland...

Well, not sneaky. They are just following the rules. As they do such large volumes of "cross-boundary" business within the EU they have to invoice "local" VAT (ie destination). They do the same with books: they invoice 8% VAT on top of the advertised prices when shipping to Finland (books are zero rated in the UK). A smaller company like www.bookdepository.co.uk still ships books at zero-rated VAT, which is one reason why they are usually cheaper than Amazon. But they can only do this because their volume of trade with Finland is below the ceiling (whatever that is).

In the case of a Playstation it might be cheaper to have it shipped to a friend in the UK and then use a Blue1 ticket to go pick it up, you can fill up on other stuff at the same time. But baggage allowance can be a problem on the cheap flights.

[SteveS]

Nice to know the reason why P..

You're right, it's not really sneaky as it is all detailed on the site if you go digging through the small print.

When I bought the Playstation3 they only charged me £7.95 postage (before VAT). I thought about €10 for postage was a great deal


I fly a lot in my work and recently all the big airlines have clamped down on excess baggage (KLM, Finnair, BA). I've been charged every time lately even if just 2kg over..

Normally I'm about 10kg over on every flight (tools) and the extra charge nearly equals the flight ticket in some cases!

[Rosamunda]

When I bought the Playstation3 they only charged me £7.95 postage (before VAT). I thought about €10 for postage was a great deal

Wow! That's cheap. Was it direct from Amazon or from a Marketplace retailer?

[SteveS]

Amazon.co.uk

Here are the numbers from my fully loaded PS3 (from my invoice)

Item(s) Subtotal: £304.13
Postage & Packing: £7.95
-----
Total Before VAT: £312.08
VAT: £68.69
-----
Total: £380.77
Promotion Applied: -£70.00
-----
Grand Total: £310.77

[meplusthree]

Just ordered PS3 plus load of other stuff via Amazon uk all items from Amazon and not other reseller. It appears that you pay the postage once only on the complete order - in my case gbp 9.93. My order is going to be sent in at least 2 deliveries and the gbp 9.93 covers them all.
Ps3 seems like good deal at gbp 297, all you need to do is replace the plug or whole power cable which apparently is the same as standard desktop pc cable.
It is best though to compare the prices as some things can be cheaper in Fin eg the PS3 DVD controller was cheaper in Gigantti when I placed my order.

[riku2]

Virtually all televisions now sold in Europe are now multi standard/region. It is just not worth the manufacturers effort making separate versions for separate regions.

this really only applies if you're going to feed the TV from a digibox or something else through its video inputs (scart, HDMI etc). The tuners are localized and are different between UK, Finland and other EU countries.
An analog tuner isn't any use in finland and digital ones will probably show the picture and at least one of the soundtracks but you might have trouble with subtitles, EPG and channel numbering.
The panasonic DVD recorder I just bought back from UK will not show any YLE subtitles since the only subtitle languages you can choose are english, welsh and Gaelic! On the other hand the 7 day EPG DOES work (unlike the german panasonic DVD recorder I just replaced where the EPG only showed now+next).
I've only seen products with DVB-T for sale in uk shops, so if you're on cable (DVB-C) then I don't think you'll even get a picture in Finland.