Wrote an email to Ikea in Switzerland today and asked them to explain the price difference on their products between Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland. The example below is just one product. It is like that for their entire catalogue. The product in question is 46.5% more expensive here compared to Denmark.
Anyone here want to guess what the reply will be?
---- email -----
I would like to ask you how can you can justify a price difference between the Sultan Tafjord ( 901.556.29 ) between Denmark, Germany and Switzerland?
In Switzerland the Sultan Tafjord is 189 CHF
In Germany the Sultan Tafjord is 139 Euro or app. 168 CHF
In Demnark the Sultan Tafjord is 799 DKK or app. 129 CHF
A price difference for the customer of 60 CHF for the same product - seems absolutely out of order. Considering that DK and DE have 18 and 25% VAT?
Crazy..... 25% vat in Denmark/18% in Germany.... which can be deducted from the Danish or German price as well if you bring it across the border to Switzerland. Surely it can't be explained.
Probably, but then you will have to add transport costs, swiss vat and other swiss additional costs and at the end maybe the difference won't be such big. To be honest I also think that the prices are toooo high in Swiss but on the other hand, so is your payment check. It is not fair I know, but that is Swiss. When something is expensive for me I always find cheaper solutions from abroad.
You will find some prices lower in CH, some prices higher in CH, same in other businesses. In a capitalist society shops will charge what they see to be the optimal price in every market, it's all about making a profit!
Of course but the price difference still doesn't make sense. Normally if you ship a container from for example Denmark to Switzerland, you would calculate a 4-5% of the total container value for transport, so their price differentiation doesn't make any sense.
I know - I work as a professional in price management. If I were doing their pricing I would be seriously concerned about parallel import and border trading.
It is all about the fine art of making a buck. But now that we are talking about Sultans, it is not always the case that Switzerland will be more expensive than its neighboring countries:
For some things Switzerland is extremely expensive, but then if you know where to look, you can find reasonable prices for the same type of products. I just bought a pair of shoes for 40 CHF. The exact same pair of shoes (but with a different brand name) where 250 CHF at the store across the street. Both shoes where made of the same materials, had the same style, same color. Most likely even made by the same manufacturer.
It may have changed in the last 2 years, but when I moved into my flat here I learnt that I could simply manipulate the Ikea URL and swap between German, UK and Swiss info/prices for each thing I wanted.
Almost everything worked out to be close to the same price in all three countries. The mattress I wanted, however, was much more expensive here compared to the UK. So I picked one which was the same price (here) but which had a UK price matching the Swiss one.
I think Ikea is one of the few places that actually charges "European" prices rather than Swiss ones here. For example, their meals are vey cheap here compared to the local alternatives.
I guarantee that if you go to the US, you will NOT find the same item at the same price in the same chain of stores throughout the country, why would you expect it to so here?
Also, here it's not just transportation costs, it's rent cost, having to deal with importation costs and paperwork at the border, etc.
Personally, I cannot be bother to go to Germany to save 21 francs. Even if I lived close to the German border, my time is worth far more.
When we moved over last year, we bought a bunch of Ikea stuff in Germany as it was suggested by the moving company (rep from the German side) that it would be cheaper. In the end we did so - we spent about 4500 EUR, I think, and had it shipped with our goods. We ended up dealing with the Swiss side of the moving company and somehow our stuff wasn't brought into CH with the correct paperwork. I got a bill for 400 Chf or so to pay the Swss VAT but getting the German VAT back wasn't so easy due to the paperwork mix up, and it took a few hours of haggling with customs and our shipper, with 3 kids in tow, to get a piece of paper with a stamp that I wasn't sure Ikea would honor. in the end, they did, and I got back about 700 EUR, iirc. Since the CHF was so high last summer, it was cheaper to buy in Germany, but to be honest, there were times I wished I hadn't bothered.
Saving money isn't always what it is all about!
And, DE is a huge market compared to CH, and as the market can set the price and buying in quantity must be advantageous, tha will acct for some discrepancy.
If you want to be outraged, look into baby milk powders - here they cost 20 CHF and in Germany the same item was less than 4 EUR! Was a good incentive to wean the 2 year old from his nighttime bottle
I think Ikea feels it can charge whatever ridiculous prices it wants to here in CH because it seems to have a bit of a monopoly on the affordable-furniture market here.