VAT and Delivery prices

The biggest culprits for the type of misleading bullshit are internet based companies although there are a few bricks and mortar companies who also do this. I am of course talking about the “wow what a great price” factor when you are browsing products in an online shop.

You know the ones – you find a product you wanted at a fantastic price and begin the checkout process only to discover that the price you were so pleased with is pre-VAT and delivery charges. Of course the worst part of it is that in most cases the delivery charge is so high that you will end up paying as much or even more than the regular shops you looked at first. This is particularly a common factor on Amazon.

The biggest problem I have with this type of “advertised price” not ending up being anywhere near the price you ultimately end up paying is that they know that it won’t even register in most buyers minds that they aren’t getting the bargain they thought they were getting because they won’t factor the delivery cost as part of the product cost. I hate this type of behavior and make my delivery cost known on the home page and my prices already include VAT. I see no reason other than marketing deception to not include VAT in the first price you see before the checkout.

I did ask a company about this once and they said it’s because some buyers will be VAT registered and will be paying the advertised price. He couldn’t give me a satisfactory answer when I pointed out that not only would that be a massive minority of customers – but also would only be trade buyers anyway who wouldn’t be buying from the retail section. Needless to say I do not buy from that company anymore.

It is a sneaky fuckingtactic designed to lure you into buying from whichever company has the cheapest “first seen” price and it is just wrong and unfair to a consumer. As I said the practice is most common on Amazon but also on Ebay too. I always filter searches by lowest – highest option on both sites and it just annoys the crap out of me that when I see a great price that when I click on it, that the cheapest prices are nearly always minus delivery and VAT. E bay is the worst for this though because at least on the amazon seller list the delivery cost is viewable next to each seller whereas on E bay you often have to click on the seller and scroll through the product description to find out the delivery cost.