Currency woes for american sellers.

The pain in the ass is that fewer US buyers are interested in purchasing anything from the UK (for example) because our prices look OTT. Add exchange rate and the full whack of postage & packaging (which has really gone up if you wish to remain with well known delivery companies) and it's too expensive!

So it's not ALL roses in the UK garden. Your price comparison is very interesting however as pre-Christmas a lot of people travel to the States or use US sites to do their shopping. I think this year huge bargains will be available.

How many import consoles will be under the Christmas trees this year I wonder?

 

For us on the european continent (EURO) the exchange rate with the dollar is very positive Finally a positive thing after being screwed over by inflated / doubled prices after the introduction of the euro.

Now if i could only find someone who would bring an xbox360 from the US for me...

 

Precisely the reason I had to forfit my purchase on one of Mr Rare's Partner 64 kits :crying:....

 

I hardly ever have any customers in the US since the US dollar is even pretty weak to the yen. Most of my customers are European and a few Asians. I think these days that the Euro is the way to go for international trading.

Yakumo

 

Many of my country people (Singapore) have been doing mass orders from USA. Buy stuff there. And those business minded people are grabbing US Funds. Guess they think it will rebound for sure.

 

working for an american car parts firm, they love it when the $ goes down as it means that they can bulk pre buy their dollars for purchasing in the USA, but its always the shiping that will affect us consumer style buyers...

 

Selling FROM the US thou should be easier. Canada is pretty much 1 to 1 and many of those buyer act as if everything is on sale.

 

And postage out of the UK as well is obscene

 

I've been buying TONS of stuff from the us lately I know I wouldn't have a couple of months earlier.
The euro/dollar rate is just insane

 

Shipping anything overseas from the US also has gone up. USPS no longer offers the cheaper and equally reliable Airmail Parcel Post. Now all I can get is International priority, which is always $10-$15 more and then some.

But my hats off to the Euro. Let them buy the good stuff from the US for cheap.

 

The US dollars weak position at the moment has really helped a lot of European collectors, It has now become worthwhile looking for games accessories (which are always region free pretty much) aswell as region free next gen titles and pretty much all promo items or other wares that one might like to purchase from the U S of A including shipping.

I remember the dollar firmly sitting around the 1.6 to the £ mark for a long time.

The European nations who have adopted the Euro must be riding the wave of benefits from the weak Dollar, I really would like to keep the £ in the UK in the future though.

Pound Sterling have been part of the UK`s tradition for a very long time, Its So damn strong too.

In the UK we are not going to let the £ go quietly into the night if we can help it. One of New Labour`s original election/re-election campaign policies was a referendum on adopting the Euro.

We can be very stubborn about a few things. Even though many will claim the Monarchy are an archaic waste of tax payers money and are only good for tourism, tell a large percentage of the general public the Queen won`t be on the money anymore (something that will happen with a new King anyway) and you will have a lot of disgruntled ppl.

It`s funny though as we could have Euros with the Monarch on them and all of our landmarks if we wished. The new £20 notes look suspiciously like Euro notes which seems to be some form of early indoctrination process at work.

Rant over. I don`t know where this all came from, was supposed to be about the dollar and i went waaaaay off topic.

 

They changed the £20 again?! Boy, I'm getting out of touch. As someone that in UK politics would be considered pro-european, I'd say that the Euro is probably going to be the way to go... but, yes - I really would miss Sterling. I won't miss having to change currency each time I cross the Channel, though.

Anyway, to drag this back on-topic...

Yes! Buying stuff from Europe is getting prohibitively painful, both in terms of price & shipping. But, it's part of the game - I remember times when Sterling basically sucked & this worked the other way. I like to keep some savings in different currencies nowadays, partly as an insulation against currency chaos.

 

Strong compared to some currencies yes (of course, it's lost ~5% of its value compared to some non-euro EU contries in the last 6 weeks). But compared to the Euro, I would say its been pretty stable!


Yellow: EUR/GBP
Red: EUR/USD

Shiggsy

 

I earn $s and pay a UK mortgage by bank transfer....its awful....$ is the worst currency to earn.....

 

The euro isn't the way to go for the UK, indeed the only countries who want the euro have weak currency's. There is a growing regret in Germany now about joining the Euro. The German lads I work with hate it as do some French.
Yes it does have some advantages - traveling in the euro zone is so much easier (I work near to the boarder of France Spain and Andorra. I dont have to change any money over to go there). But also it means giving up things like [edit base] interest rates - its one for the whole of the euro zone thus may not suit everyone.
To sum it up -
Its nice for a tourist but no thanks not in my back yard.

 

What are you saying exactly? There is a set/fixed interest rate all banks give in the whole euro zone...? Hmm...

Shiggsy

 

I mean as in the base rate, in the UK its set by the Bank of England in the "Eurozone" is set by the European Central Bank.

As the Euro zone is over a number of country's it may not benefit every one of them.