[Baltan II]

Yeah, Goblez and I were discussing the matter over Twitter, as my original draft of that post was going to say all stores don't charge international customers the tax anyway, but then I looked at AmiAmi for verification...

I'm not certain, but I believe AmiAmi is part of the minority to charge us their taxes. Continuing to use Zangetsu as the illustration, here are other sites and their default prices:

Anime-Export (no tax): http://www.anime-export.com/product/18414
CS Toys (no tax, no Zangetsu): http://www.cstoysjapan.com/servlet/t...r-Agito/Detail
YesAsia (awful price either way): http://www.yesasia.com/us/s-h-figuar...0-en/info.html
Japan-Toys (tax): http://www.japan-toys.com/cgi-bin/us...gi?id=CHO-2176

Granted, including the tax doesn't make AmiAmi inherently less competitive, but it is an interesting factor to note when comparing prices between the import stores of choice. Whether or not a portion of an item's cost is allocated to a sales tax, what matters in the end is what we as international customers end up paying, and the 3% increase may or may not affect us with future items.

This would also mean my earlier point about Bluefin having an advantage by not charging taxes technically incorrect in most cases - but that's okay, buying from a Bluefin-supplied retailer has its own advantages and disadvantages.

[Goblez]

well Amiami put this up

Quote:

*Product Price and Discount Rate Display Revision(updated Apr 1, 2014)
Notice: No taxes are included in our price and taxes will not be added upon order checkout or invoice for international orders.

Due to the tax rate change in Japan, we will be revising the product price for some items and how the discount rates are displayed at our store. In the past, the discount rate was displayed as a percentage off the suggested retail price not including sales tax. We will be changing the discount rate to be displayed as a percentage calculated using the retail price including sales tax. While our store’s discount rate may seem to have decreased recently, this is not the case and with this display revision, we believe it will be easier for our customers to understand how less expensive it is to purchase from our store compared to purchasing at retail price in Japan.

Please understand that there will be some products listed with the old display and some with the new as it will unfortunately take some time for us to change the display of all prices at our store. We apologize for the confusion and ask for your patience and understanding. Thank you for your support of AmiAmi.