Regarding component costs

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sssutututu

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I have tried to look up, but can't find any solid yes or no explanations.

Do importers pay vat for a GPU then the retailer also pays vat for that GPU and then we as well?

So an RX 9070 XT with a $599 MSRP (R10,900) currently sold for around ~R19,500 on Wootware would be ~R16,500 for us to buy it excluding any other markup, duty & transport if applicable from any other party involved before the public, if it's like this how do they make any money? do they literally make only a few bucks per component vs it's price? is that how vat is applied in the selling line until it reaches the public?

IF it is not how vat works and it's less than per above, then where does the massive sold-to-public price come from?
 
Welcome to south-africa, it's not enough that our currency is useless, we also need to get extra tax slapped on top of stuff too!
 
nevermind the shipping cost to SA..

4 thermal tunes 38g each costed me 62 dollars and then another R1200 +/- import duties. (special order i had to do).
nevermind that the bank charged an extra R300 claimed currency exchange (wrote it off).


But yes imports cost a fee etc then shipping and taxes duties etc etc distributor adds a markup etc

But distributor doesnt pay what retails in the US pays its all costs anyway i remember a chinese company that sends me weekly mails sent me the RTX 5090 cost in USD... was still shocked at the price tag before any duties.

and yes not a lot of margin on the stuff we would love to slap 20% on the stuff but there will always be a store trying to put a 3% margin on something just to make the sale.

remember as well when you pay by card at a store 3-4% of that amount goes to the payment gateway company and 5-7% in some cases to those BNPL companies it all adds up.

Also you cant really look at American stores they operate differently they add VAT afterwards in the states depending on factors like which state etc. Not sure what the % is i know in France luxury vat was something like 20%

also the US economy and EU is much larger than SA so they buy more stock more bulk = lower price and shipping from China/taiwan to the US or even EU is cheaper than to SA they have better trade agreements (had)

It's also Rand vs Dollar if the rand is volatile yet stays at R18.4 or drops by 1 cent then because its volatile the price may go up (just in case the dollar does climb). This is out of our hands unfortunately.

I keep the cost prices on file on a daily and weekly basis since 2020
and in many cases prices do drop we just dont notice it too much.
As for latest components like motherboards yeah i do find the prices little too high. Which was a good thing AMD keeps stocking up on 5000 series CPU's as they still decent even in 2025 (depends what you want to use them for of course).
It's GPU's thats mostly been an issue especially this year so far.

1741721590283.png
 
Tech Guy SA said:
nevermind the shipping cost to SA..

4 thermal tunes 38g each costed me 62 dollars and then another R1200 +/- import duties. (special order i had to do).
nevermind that the bank charged an extra R300 claimed currency exchange (wrote it off).


But yes imports cost a fee etc then shipping and taxes duties etc etc distributor adds a markup etc

But distributor doesnt pay what retails in the US pays its all costs anyway i remember a chinese company that sends me weekly mails sent me the RTX 5090 cost in USD... was still shocked at the price tag before any duties.

and yes not a lot of margin on the stuff we would love to slap 20% on the stuff but there will always be a store trying to put a 3% margin on something just to make the sale.

remember as well when you pay by card at a store 3-4% of that amount goes to the payment gateway company and 5-7% in some cases to those BNPL companies it all adds up.

Also you cant really look at American stores they operate differently they add VAT afterwards in the states depending on factors like which state etc. Not sure what the % is i know in France luxury vat was something like 20%

also the US economy and EU is much larger than SA so they buy more stock more bulk = lower price and shipping from China/taiwan to the US or even EU is cheaper than to SA they have better trade agreements (had)

It's also Rand vs Dollar if the rand is volatile yet stays at R18.4 or drops by 1 cent then because its volatile the price may go up (just in case the dollar does climb). This is out of our hands unfortunately.

I keep the cost prices on file on a daily and weekly basis since 2020
and in many cases prices do drop we just dont notice it too much.
As for latest components like motherboards yeah i do find the prices little too high. Which was a good thing AMD keeps stocking up on 5000 series CPU's as they still decent even in 2025 (depends what you want to use them for of course).
It's GPU's thats mostly been an issue especially this year so far.

View attachment 1803303
Click to expand...
Everything said ^here^ is true.

Shipping
Shipping insurance
Import duties
Luxury tax
Currency Conversion fees
Forward cover
VAT
Distributor % markup
Reseller % markup

(anything else I've forgotten here?)

All of this gets tacked on and passed to the end-user. What does irk me, is that when vendors give MSRP, it includes at the very least the Disti/Reseller % markup.

In enterprise, if you're getting MSRP, you're getting hilariously ripped off. But in the consumer space it seems to be a no-holds-barred fight-to-the-death cage match of just how screwed we can get.
 
I am waiting anxiously on a potential work trip to the US, hoping to bring back at least a graphics card and motherboard and skip import duties..
 
WAslayer said:
I am waiting anxiously on a potential work trip to the US, hoping to bring back at least a graphics card and motherboard and skip import duties..
Click to expand...
Make sure it works before bringing it back..
Good luck RMA-ing something from the other side of the world. :rolleyes:
 
Faux_Grey said:
Everything said ^here^ is true.

Shipping
Shipping insurance
Import duties
Luxury tax
Currency Conversion fees
Forward cover
VAT
Distributor % markup
Reseller % markup

(anything else I've forgotten here?)

All of this gets tacked on and passed to the end-user. What does irk me, is that when vendors give MSRP, it includes at the very least the Disti/Reseller % markup.

In enterprise, if you're getting MSRP, you're getting hilariously ripped off. But in the consumer space it seems to be a no-holds-barred fight-to-the-death cage match of just how screwed we can get.
Click to expand...

some suppliers though have RRP or SRP which is higher than the mark ups we using, however no one follows them when i started i followed it and made R0 sales cause i was higher priced.

Its kinda forced on you to be cheaper except for one brand due to agreements still well priced anyway.

Some stores i got my erks with when it comes to pricing *yes you know who you are :stares at you:
 
Tech Guy SA said:
well to be fair

the chances of a component failing are slim eitherway.
like very slim.
Click to expand...
I have personally not had a failure ever.. right now I am running an ex mining graphics card, mined for three years straight.. I have been running it for at least 5 years after that, no hassles..

In the 5 years I worked as a desktop jockey we had maybe 3 ram sticks fail, nothing else.. this was for all the 200+ desktops and 200+ servers in the DC..
 
WAslayer said:
I have personally not had a failure ever.. right now I am running an ex mining graphics card, mined for three years straight.. I have been running it for at least 5 years after that, no hassles..

In the 5 years I worked as a desktop jockey we had maybe 3 ram sticks fail, nothing else.. this was for all the 200+ desktops and 200+ servers in the DC..
Click to expand...
ja same here

i sell LGA 1151 socket boards at best those are failing some people due to many factors like surge and those are way out of warranty anyway.

All 3 of my machines still run well heck they gone through load shedding you name it.

i replaced 1 nvme stick (another is going but im too lazy to install windows on a inferior drive so ill wait for it to DIE)
replaced 1 kit of ram cause its just allergic to that one motherboard (yet the 1 stick is the other isnt but same kit).

if you clean dust out time to time and look after it dont do dumb things like OC and forgetting things like voltage and heat it should be fine they built for abuse ish. even those cheap A520 boards last well

had 1 or 2 customers with GPU and Motherboard issues (not same clients) and those were in warranty but rare to happen.


but you know ...things happen so there is that chance maybe 2% chance
 
Tech Guy SA said:
some suppliers though have RRP or SRP which is higher than the mark ups we using, however no one follows them when i started i followed it and made R0 sales cause i was higher priced.
Click to expand...
And then on the flip-side you get SEP (single exit price), where if you don't follow it you get reduced/no allocation going forward. 30%+ forced upon the retailer for launch because it's a "premium brand."
 
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