Orio opened this issue on Jul 23, 2002 ยท 71 posts
Orio posted Tue, 23 July 2002 at 9:23 PM
Dragonlady: based on the following evidences: - download version of Pro Pack available ONLY to users of U.S. and of few other countries; - U.S. stores such as Beyond.com reselling ProPack but prohibiting purchase of ProPack to non-US users (while most other software can be purchased, e.g. I purchased Amorphium from them time ago); - European online stores such as Amazon.co.uk not selling ProPack (at least at the time I was looking for it) I came to the conclusion that Curious Labs must have signed exclusive contracts with Europeans resellers, who could resale ProPack at the price they wanted, free from any competition. Is that legal? Yes. Is that good for the image of the company? Not in my opinion, but maybe they don't care much about what European users think - they evidently prefer the money of their resale contracts. Is that wise? No, and neither it is respectful of people who invested their money in a product for the upgrade of which they have been -such as in my case, or your case in Sweden- truly SACKED. A honest software resale price (and I underline the word "software" because when it comes to overseas distribution, it is very significant, price-wise, to differentiate this from the heavy and large hardware products) can be one that is between 30% and 35% of the original price including VAT. This takes into account the custom charges, stock shipping costs (usually small for thing like software, that can fit into almost any shipping as a filler, doesn't need a standalone shipment) and a very fair reseller's share. Not forgetting that the price the company sells to a reseller, is very different from the price that the same company sells to final users in it's own country. Any software resale price that is higher than 35% and lower than 50% is a too high resale price, but still within decency. Any software resale price that is higher than 50% and lower than 80% is a shamelessly unfair greedy price that discriminates the foreign customer in an unfair way Any software resale price that is higher than 80% is, very plainly said, like a theft.