cricket - football. I see today Man United had to bribe to ref to add on 2 extra mins on top of the 4 extra mins for them to win! As for the upgrade: I'll wait for Cakewalk to offer a discount of 25% in their online shop before buying. 

ivanSC


buy it in the usa like i did. My net to me price was £61 equivalent in dollars.

And the only way they will ever get me into Australia is in an urn.

My grandfather was australian & 3/4 of my family returned there in the 60s. Me? wouldn`t be caught dead there.

paulo


Hey all

Anyone managed to get an answer from Cake as to why you have to pay so much more for a download of 8.5 in the UK compared to US ?  (99$ = £89  ? - not according to any exchange rate I've ever seen !)
I've tried asking the question directly via e-mail, but as per usual in my experience  - no reply !

For the record, so that you all don't just think of me as Mr Negative Moany-Pants, I think Sonar is a great product and have learnt a great deal from the many good people on this forum who take the time to answer peoples questions - and I thank you all for this.  I also know from many hours spent reading the posts on this forum that some of the nice people from CW are often on here too, so how about it guys - an answer please ? 

UPDATE : Just received a reply from Cakewalk "Customer Service"  - The answer is that they don't know why the prices are different !! Well, that clears that up nicely then !
I can't believe that at least one of the regular CW staff who visit the forum hasn't seen the threads re pricing. Help us out here people ! C'mon ! The product is great, but you are letting yourselves down badly here by just ignoring questions you don't want to answer. If there is a perfectly good reason for the UK price premium, let's hear it.

Fret Wizz


I've always been  under the impression that the difference in price
for EU customers is because of sales tax/stamp duty or similar.

steal some loyal

fitzj

It's not about Vat import duties its a quick way to jump on the gravy train for cakewalk. As I said they think little of their European customers as  they never had the courtesy to answer anyone on this forum why th eprice difference, yet they jump in quickly on other silly questions.

ChristopherM

$100 worth of software today you'd pay just over £17 vat on the package and that's it. £78 total. Purchase it from a retailer in the states and have it shipped over.

I'm not sure I agree with your arithmetic -

$99 is approximately £60 at current exchange rates.

According to UK HMRC, "Customs duty becomes payable if the goods are over £120 in value", so there is no import duty in this case. And "Import VAT is charged at the same rate that applies to similar goods sold in the UK and applies to commercial goods over £18 in value, and on gifts that are over £36 in value. The value of the goods for import VAT is based on the:

• basic value of goods, plus
• postage, packing and insurance, plus
• any import (customs or excise) duties charged."

So, for the download, ppi is nil, so the amount subject to VAT is £60.  At 15%, that's £9, so the total including VAT and duty would be £69.

However, there is a further twist "Customised software supplied from outside the EU on a physical carrier medium, and any software downloaded from a source outside the EU, are subject to what is known as the reverse charge. This means that the purchaser, when completing its VAT return, must declare and pay VAT on the value of the software."  So it's not even Cakewalk's responsibility to pay the VAT.  (Actually, as some users are not VAT registered, I think in practice no VAT could be paid by such customers).

Cakewalk should therefore charge notionally the same amount for a download for the UK as the USA - maybe it could take a "safe" view on likely exchange rate variances, but the present practice amounts to making an excess profit of nearly 50% on every UK download.  Imagine the cries of pain if Cakewalk put up its prices by 50% in the USA.

vocalid


.....don't forget, not only you UK customers, the whole of europe has to swallow the same price......

Wood67

By discounting it, Cake will gain some market share and steal some loyal Steinberg and Apple customers.

That's not necessarily true.  If you wish to promote a product as superior quality, discounting the price can have an inverse affect on sales.  The consumer demand for a product actually increases in proportion to the price.  That 'snob effect' theory usaully applies to unique goods often with little real value (such as all those handbags, oversized sunglasses etc), but can apply to anything where lowering the price cheapens the product perception.

I'm not an insider so I don't know where Cakewalk want to take their product.  If they wanted to really compete with PT etc they'd pour all the resources into the core app, make it absolutely kicking and leave out new eye candy/VST softsynths.  Then I'd double  the price.  Pro-sumer is more like where they are and that's tricky because there's quite a few players on the market and many potential customers who could easily go for budget solutions.  In fact, I think what I would do is rationalise the whole product line - have a Music Creator with slightly more features than it has now at the same intro-price (excellent product, and where I started), a single full version of super Sonar, and then packages with all the supporting VST/applets that people could pick'n'choose from as they wish.