While traveling in England just now, I noticed that the Chord Dave was priced very differently in the US and the UK. In the US, the asking price is now $14,000, and that is before taxes. In the UK, the asking price seems to be £10,000, and that includes VAT. While some of this difference is likely due to the strong dollar, that can’t explain all of the huge gap. I also suspect import duties does not account for that much of the difference.
What gives? How do you explain this?
Well , it makes sense that it would be somewhat cheaper being a British product but that is a very big difference. I see it listed on AudioSanctuary for 8,329£ !!! That’s almost 40% off of the price here😲
See the recent trend chart for the pound versus US dollar:
Your price observations make perfect sense, as the pound fell from $1.40 USD to close to $1.00 USD over the last year. MSRPs reflect currency exchange rates at some point in time.
Furthermore, when a manufacturer sells products for lower prices in a foreign country they are said to be engaged in “international trade dumping” – many historical economic wars and issues here.
Chord stuff has always been a fair bit cheaper in the UK compared to the US. It is a British brand though so that makes sense.
The recent drop in the value of the Pound compared to the Dollar though has made the effective price gap larger
Just fyi, the exchange rate has been moving in favor of the dollar, as shown in the chart generic posted.
A year ago it took 1.38 US dollars to buy a Pound, now it takes 1.13 dollars, so the gap is lessening.
Edit: Oh, unless you meant the $14,000 USD price is now higher than current rate which is closer to $11,000.