aidanodr

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]
All I can say is that the price right now is great for users. Upgrade is 112 Euros plus VAT. If I hear one person complain, I'm going to be upset. Also, if you have a VAT ID you can use it. So we are listening to customers rights? :)

Not upset Andrew - It is a great price. This QE thing doesnt damage that for Cakewalks bottom line. All it does is it might mean an even better price exchange rate wise for us over the pond in Europe :D

Just not used to near parity $ to € thing .. spoilt for too long :D
 

That's good for you, but maybe not for us :)
 
Bigger point was that people had always complained about our pricing so now it become way more transparent and also we offer way more currencies now. We'll have some growing pains with stuff like that (like we did with CAD) but we are monitoring and fixing. And using your own VAT ID was a big feature request so we did it. 
 
The problems often come with the currency rate becomes unfavorable. We set our prices in Europe much the same way we do in the US. And we roll with it for an entire product cycle unless it was really bad. 

Interesting Andrew. A local Irish financial news guy I rate just tweeted me something interesting. I asked how fast will it improve the € $ Rate from our end. He replied with:

"Some economists forecasting €/$ parity next year."

So this EU QE thing might, in fact, be good for you guys??

The other thing to look at from your perspective with respect to Europe is this new EU VAT / MOSS rules that came in Jan 1st 2015. Only applies to digital downloads. Basically it means the buyer pays the VAT rate of his/her country at source ( your site ) rather than the old way - pay the VAT rate of the seller.  Not sure what impact this will have on your VAT ID initiative.

This was brought in to Europe to stop Amazon, Google etc selling from the lowest VAT jurisdiction in EU - Luxembourg.  Again the few screw it up for the many ...


 
 
 

I already bought and am happy with the price. But I do have to agree I've also gotten used to better exchange rates. Buying software in dollars is the way I feel a little vindicated for the gross overpricing of hardware over here.

aidanodr
Interesting Andrew. A local Irish financial news guy I rate just tweeted me something interesting. I asked how fast will it improve the € $ Rate from our end. He replied with:

"Some economists forecasting €/$ parity next year."

So this EU QE thing might, in fact, be good for you guys??

The other thing to look at from your perspective with respect to Europe is this new EU VAT / MOSS rules that came in Jan 1st 2015. Only applies to digital downloads. Basically it means the buyer pays the VAT rate of his/her country at source ( your site ) rather than the old way - pay the VAT rate of the seller.  Not sure what impact this will have on your VAT ID initiative.

This was brought in to Europe to stop Amazon, Google etc selling from the lowest VAT jurisdiction in EU - Luxembourg.  Again the few screw it up for the many ...


 
 
 

Our vendor is compliant with the new laws and you are correct. I still think if you have a VAT ID, you can use it. So that hasn't changed. 

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]
All I can say is that the price right now is great for users. Upgrade is 112 Euros plus VAT. If I hear one person complain, I'm going to be upset. Also, if you have a VAT ID you can use it. So we are listening to customers rights? :)

 
I'm surprised to read this from an official Rep. All my Cakewalk purchases in the past on cakewalk.com were in Euro because I live in Europe and the € prices were always identical to the $ prices, so we were paying significantly more than US customers. Also, I did not have any option to pay in $.
But now you seem to imply that use European customer can perfectly buy stuff in $ via the Cakewalk site ? I would really like to know how.
 

henk.vanwulpen

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]
All I can say is that the price right now is great for users. Upgrade is 112 Euros plus VAT. If I hear one person complain, I'm going to be upset. Also, if you have a VAT ID you can use it. So we are listening to customers rights? :)

 
I'm surprised to read this from an official Rep. All my Cakewalk purchases in the past on cakewalk.com were in Euro because I live in Europe and the € prices were always identical to the $ prices, so we were paying significantly more than US customers. Also, I did not have any option to pay in $.
But now you seem to imply that use European customer can perfectly buy stuff in $ via the Cakewalk site ? I would really like to know how.
 

I think it was mentioned here by Andrew or others in other posts that this $ € parity thing with cakewalk is not the case now. Its done by exchange rate .. I think that is it anyway .. a vague recollection of reading same over last few weeks here.

Ah ok, that makes more sense. Now I understand why Andrew then mentions €112 + VAT, since that is actually going to be the price on the Cakewalk store. Very nice move!
 
EDIT: just checked the online store and at checkout I'm indeed getting a price lower than the expected €199. It's however not a true USD-EUR conversion. The price I get is €149 + VAT which amounts to €180.29. Current conversion would result in €172. So it looks like they are now just standardizing on a pre-VAT (instead of post-VAT) price for the whole of Europe and probably took some average VAT tariff to translate the actual $-equivalent price (i.e. €172) into the pre-VAT price.

Well one can never tell what currency speculators will do which is what will change the exchange rate but in the near future it will probably go up a bit. Investors seem worried about the EU and are seeking safe haven in the dollar as they are wont to do. That means a lower price on euros compared to dollars and thus higher prices to you for things priced in dollars. 
 
In the long term? Nobody knows but I imagine it won't change much. 
 
If your question is if the price will get better for you soon, no, not likely. 

Wish the Aussie dollar was a bit stronger but I was charged about 10% in excess of the exchange rate.

 
Hmmm,  taxpayers' cash being pumped into financial institutions.  What a surprise