Hardware1.07.2019

Newegg vs Amazon – Tech pricing showdown

By Bradley Prior

Newegg recently launched an option to set South Africa as your shopping location on its global website.

This is great news for serial importers, as tech devices on international marketplaces can sometimes be cheaper than buying them in South Africa, even when taking into consideration tax and import costs.

This is also why many South Africans use global ecommerce giant Amazon to find good deals on specific products.

I is important to note when buying a product directly from the US you are essentially buying a grey import. This means no local support or warranties, which you would receive when buying from a local retailer.

We compared the pricing available to South African consumers when buying tech products from Newegg and Amazon.

Comparing prices

For the test, we chose five different tech products which are available on both websites.

We selected the cheapest price available for a new version of the product, as well as the quickest delivery time.

The prices that have been included for these products are the final prices available just before payment, and include costs such as delivery charges.

Newegg and Amazon both add the estimated import duties, VAT, and delivery costs to the total purchase price before checkout, making it easy to compare the cost of importing these products from each marketplace.

Generally, there was not a particularly common trend, and it appears that the value South Africans can get from buying from these websites is product-dependent.

We have also included local product and delivery pricing from Takealot, which offers free shipping on products over a certain price.

The pricing for these products is below.