FP4+ more in GBP than USD by a mile - How Possible?

[Tom Stanworth]

I recently noticed that FP4+ 5x4 25 shoot boxes are £35 to £40 in the UK (£35.06 Silverprint and 39.99 from Firstcall) and about $30 in the US ($28.95 from B&H and £29.99 at Adorama).

How is this possible and why are we paying close to double the price for a product made in the UK? Forget our 20% VAT being the explanation, because we are paying an extra 90% in the UK.

At this rate it is far cheaper to reimport from the US, which is absurd. It cannot possibly be due to logistical costs and economies of scale in the US.

What's the reason? I feel like we are being ripped off here, but will quickly adopt a smile if there is a sensible explanation!

[jun]

I recently noticed that FP4+ 5x4 25 shoot boxes are £35 to £40 in the UK (£35.06 Silverprint and 39.99 from Firstcall) and about $30 in the US ($28.95 from B&H and £29.99 at Adorama).

How is this possible and why are we paying close to double the price for a product made in the UK? Forget our 20% VAT being the explanation, because we are paying an extra 90% in the UK.

At this rate it is far cheaper to reimport from the US, which is absurd. It cannot possibly be due to logistical costs and economies of scale in the US.

What's the reason? I feel like we are being ripped off here, but will quickly adopt a smile if there is a sensible explanation!

Same is here in Japan.

There will be no reasonable and sensible explanation that we can agree.

For example, Fuji instant film FP-100C (3x4") in Japan (Shinjuku Yodobashi Camera) price is approximately 24.00 USD (excl. tax and others, 1.00 USD = 77.00 JPY).
Now for the same product in NY USA (B&H price) is 7.50 USD.

Why we Japanese are paying three (3) times the price for a Fuji product made in Japan?

What we can say is that the transportation cost itself is nil compared to other factors that determines the price of the product such as film (which is light and small, which can be also said to almost all photographic goods).
So some other factors will contribute and determine the price of such product (like distribution system, marketing etc).

[john_s]

In a word: Marketing.

I got sick of reading that Neopan was great because it was cheap, but here (Australia) it was the most expensive film in its class.

[Sirius Glass]

Well, the Republicans would just blame Obama for the lower costs, so don't bother asking why in the US!

[pentaxuser]

This was discussed extensively in another post or was it posts?. It is clearly Harman policy to do this, You've just found another example of this pricing policy. Clearly the U.S. is its biggest market. Upset the U.S. customers and you might lose your main income stream. Upset the U.K customers and you might lose a little of your market or given the state of Kodak you might not lose any.

U.K. analoguers who haven't moved to digital are stuck with Hobson's choice.Well Harman certainly thinks so

If Kodak folds then it will be like the joke about the person suffering from depression: "To get better I was told to smile as things could get worse. So I smiled and things indeed did get worse"

If you happen to be overweight and starting a campaign about this blatantly unfair pricing policy will expend calories then continue as you will get lighter. However don't expect it to change Harman's position

pentaxuser

[Sirius Glass]

FP4+ more in GBP than USD by a mile - How Possible?

Is that in Imperial Miles, US Statue Miles or Nautical Miles?

[Tom Stanworth]

Well its quite simple; they have lost a customer. I'm not paying £39/ $60 for 25 sheets of 5x4. Its a joke. It was not that long ago that it was £17 for a box, then £25 and now its just silly.

I can buy boxes of 5x7 FP4+ from the US, import it to the UK and it is still cheaper than fuelling a 5x4 camera at UK prices assuming I buy a handfull of boxes to spread postage. Alternatively I can buy a FIFTY sheet box of Foma 100 in the UK for ten pounds less than 25 sheets of FP4+.

I am all for supporting Ilford, but I don't like being taken for a mug.

[Nicholas Lindan]

In the days when Kodak packaged Rochester-made film overseas it would cost less in the US if it was imported from the EU/UK. How that figures was also beyond me: cost of shipping it to Europe, the cost of slitting and boxing in Europe and then the cost of shipping it back to New York.

[Leigh Youdale]

The answer simply is globalisation, market segmentation and marketing policy. Nothing new about that. It's not all bad and it's not all good. Happens with most internationally traded items. Try buying a US sourced car in Australia for less than twice the USA price. You can't. Import a couple of container loads of the same car ex a dealer in the US yourself and you might break even.

And that might even be part of the answer. I bet Adorama, B&H and anyone else in the huge USA market is actually shipping full container loads of product at least once a month or more frequently than that, and the freight and handling cost per unit in those containers is measured in a few cents or even fractions of a cent. How many UK suppliers would order a whole container load at a time? I bet not even Silverprint can do that.

You're not a mug. You simply don't understand. And you won't buy Ilford any more? I bet that's got them really rattled, but the UK retailer might also feel a bit miffed.
But if you're happy using Foma with all its quality problems, and don't mind having to store multiple boxes of re-imported Ilford stock in excess of normal usage patterns then go ahead if it makes you feel better. I'd prefer to pay more and be assured that what I was using was first rate quality and fresh when I use it - not just when I first bought it.

[MattKing]

This has more to do with distribution than anything else.

Ilford probably shoulders all the distribution administration issues itself for product sold in the UK, whereas it just sells product in quantity to its US distributor. That US distributor then determines the price it re-sells to US retailers after determining its costs.

Ilford most likely makes a reasonable amount of profit on its UK sales. The US distributor and US retailers control how much profit they make, and therefore may elect to accept less.

Ilford may also have some longer term pricing agreements with their US distributor.