Hardware prices in SA

TrueSeeker

TrueSeeker

Honorary Master
Joined
May 20, 2010
Messages
13,283
Reaction score
18,342
Location
I prefer the scenic route down the rabbit hole.
Maybe I missed something, but I see NVidia 680 graphics cards go for $499 in the US. So you would expect to pay somewhere above 499 *8.15 = R4066 currently for the same card in SA, but in reality we pay about R6200. We're looking at a 12.4x the US price here.

I always joked that stuff in SA sell at a 10x exchange rate from the Dollar, but isn't this going a bit far? Are we being scammed?

It seemed to me as if our prices took a hike around the time of the HardDrive shortage, but it's not coming back to normal at all. Hardware is just bloody expensive.

Does anybody know why mark-ups in SA are so high?
 
You've got a decimal point error there somewhere. I think you mean 1.24x - which is not too bad when you consider transport and other costs to bring the stuff into ZA.
 
Except that local Suppliers get items at wholesale, and goods are not shipped expensively by air. Yes its a scam.
 
sal12344 said:
Except that local Suppliers get items at wholesale, and goods are not shipped expensively by air. Yes its a scam.
Click to expand...

Yip, every single retailer is in cahoots and is over charging us :rolleyes:
If you think its over priced, open up your own store, undercut every single shop in the whole country and you'll make a killing! Small margins, high volume = high profit right? Right!
 
The suppliers have to pay VAT on the items when they get here so your base price of $499 becomes R4636 using your exchange rate. They then have to make some money on the product and so do the retailers.

Shipping is not making up the price difference that you see but it is a factor and every little bit adds up in the end.
 
Nick_K said:
The suppliers have to pay VAT on the items when they get here so your base price of $499 becomes R4636 using your exchange rate. They then have to make some money on the product and so do the retailers.

Shipping is not making up the price difference that you see but it is a factor and every little bit adds up in the end.
Click to expand...

That $499 is retail pricing. Suppliers don't pay retail. Profit is already included in the $499 figure.
 
The retail price in the US is not much higher than the price the local suppliers are paying. Most of the retailers in the US are also using rebates to get to certain prices which are often not available here.
 
ambo said:
You've got a decimal point error there somewhere. I think you mean 1.24x - which is not too bad when you consider transport and other costs to bring the stuff into ZA.
Click to expand...

12.4 is correct... price in rands/price in dollars.
We actually pay 1.56 x the price the americans pay at the current exchange rate of R7.95 to the dollar... which is a bit overboard.
 
I've also been wondering about this whole thing. I don't think our retail stores are overcharging us, but I think it has to do with added vat, customs and duties..

Since just about all electronics are manufactured in the east, do they ship to USA then to us or does it come straight from the factory to our shores?

I have a feeling it goes factory -> USA -> SA as that's the only plausible explanation for the increase in price, unless our wholesale suppliers are ripping us all a new one!
 
Most of the parts come from the east and sometimes from Europe. I don't think that there are many if any suppliers who ship to the US first and then here but I don't know for sure.
 
I think they ship to Europe and America, then we only buy from Europe I think.
 
Nick_K said:
The retail price in the US is not much higher than the price the local suppliers are paying. Most of the retailers in the US are also using rebates to get to certain prices which are often not available here.
Click to expand...
SA suppliers also get the rebates. They just don't pass those savings on to their customers.
 
Gnome said:
SA suppliers also get the rebates. They just don't pass those savings on to their customers.
Click to expand...

Rebates!!!! Tell me who gets rebates:wtf: We have to beg vendors to give us any type of discounts or have to buy in huge quantities to get 1 or 2% off the normal pricing , even when we have birthday sales or any other events, we have to prepare two or three months in advance with motivations if we want to discount pricing that that day or week ,I am currently overseas and can tell you that pricing in South Africa is not as high as you think , if you take the shipping cost, charges that we have to pay to import goods into South Africa and also pay cost to return RMA items back to the vendors , I cannot speak for other distributors or retailers I’ve been to four Malls in the last week at my current destination and compared pricing against retail pricing , but one thing is certain prices are not high in South Africa., Also the Rand/Dollar is a major influence on pricing.
 
Esquire said:
...I am currently overseas and can tell you that pricing in South Africa is not as high as you think...
Click to expand...

Agreed, was recently in dubai and they aren't that much cheaper than SA and that's if you find the stuff you are looking for. :p
 
Esquire said:
Rebates!!!! Tell me who gets rebates:wtf: We have to beg vendors to give us any type of discounts or have to buy in huge quantities to get 1 or 2% off the normal pricing , even when we have birthday sales or any other events, we have to prepare two or three months in advance with motivations if we want to discount pricing that that day or week ,I am currently overseas and can tell you that pricing in South Africa is not as high as you think , if you take the shipping cost, charges that we have to pay to import goods into South Africa and also pay cost to return RMA items back to the vendors , I cannot speak for other distributors or retailers I’ve been to four Malls in the last week at my current destination and compared pricing against retail pricing , but one thing is certain prices are not high in South Africa., Also the Rand/Dollar is a major influence on pricing.
Click to expand...

I didn't say the pricing was bad, only that you do sometimes receive rebates? I think you yourself posted before that you received rebate on something. Am I mistaken on that?

I for one can vouch that high volume items are cheap in SA from the distributors, for example:
RAM (Kingston esp.), Flash-drives, CPUs, SSDs, motherboards. Most of these items cost very close to the same as the price you would pay on eBay which is usually as cheap as you can get it. Sad part is those prices aren't the prices paid by end users in SA.

Certain speciality items are overpriced locally however. I know this because when I look on eBay and an item (RAID adapter for example) is R800 VS. R4000 something is definitely wrong (both brand new).
 
South african pricing on most PC equipment is quite cheap i compared the prices in HK and in mainland china when i was there a few times and most of the stuff is cheaper here and we get the genuine article here .
AFIK there is no duty on computer equipment only monitors bigger that 20"
 
Prices are high in South Africa for most items... go to buy.yahoo.com.tw and search for the items. Those are at 10% markup price to street vendors in Taiwan...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X