As a consumer, more competition can be a good thing. Competition in manufacturing brings innovation and might help drive core pricing down, whereas competition in selling pits retailers against each other to see who will accept the lowest profit margin. In the US, Newegg is a big name when it comes to computer components and pre-built PCs, but also sells hand blenders, sporting goods and toys. It also allows third-party sellers to get in on the act, and as such you can navigate to Newegg to purchase a dust pan and brush.

For users outside the US, sometimes Newegg’s deals seem almost ridiculous. Part of that is because of the different tax regime, but sometimes there are US only parts (laptops spring to mind) that are unavailable elsewhere. Back at Mobile World Congress in February, I met with Newegg. I was told (with glee) that Newegg would be coming to Europe and other regions over the course of the next few months. Last week the official announcement was made: Newegg is now selling to the UK and Australia. If I log in to Newegg today I can get UK pricing:

All promotional codes I can find seem to work with any UK purchase. There are some initial downsides, mostly related to import tax. The price you see on the product page is not necessarily the price you pay.

In the UK, when importing goods from outside of Europe, the government (via the postal service) will levy up to a 20% tax plus an admin fee. For those in the US, normally the price we see is the price we pay in the UK, so that might come as a shock to UK buyers. Eligible items will show as above with the pricing and an ‘add to cart’. Shipping, as you might imagine coming from the US, is not free. But moving through to the checkout adds the following:

As you see here, the K6000 is normally £3500, but reduced to £2989.90 due to a Newegg sale. The tax and duty comes to £600.37, with £13.94 shipping and discount code brings the total to £3544.40, just above the original price. The way Newegg will work is that they will charge the consumer in advance for taxes and duties so that items will not be held in customs and delivery targets can be met. Hopefully this will be met by the delivery services and any discrepancies will not cause issues to the buyer. I notice that tax from the shipping cost is not taken into account. I have been charged tax on shipping to the UK before, and I discussed this with Newegg.  Newegg stated that the aim is to include all the costs at the point of sale, such that items are quickly sent through to the buyer.

Distance selling is stage one of Newegg’s expansion, with further stages to come. These stages should be centered around selling to the rest of Europe, as well as locating a warehouse in the region. Newegg has not given me any definite indication of what the plans are or timeframe for such plans, but the end goal is to bring what is sold in the US to the global market.

One question that I have seen asked since this news was released is whether the market (in the UK at least) needs another retailer.  This goes double for one aiming to sell long distance. Without a specific deal at Newegg, most items (or the several I had looked at) work out around the same price (due to taxes) but take a few days longer to post, and thus it makes more sense to purchase locally. For those rare items that we cannot get in the UK, at least there is now an outlet. But with SCAN, OverclockersUK, Aria, Dabs, eBuyer and even Amazon in the mix, it might be hard for Newegg to gain a profitable foothold beyond distance selling.

Currently Newegg is offering a small selection through the website, with aims to expand the offering during the course of 2014.  This will include access to Rosewill, Newegg’s in-house brand. More information can be found via Newegg’s blog post about the expansion.

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  • Da W - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link

    Netflix came to Canada as their second country after the US and they took time to translate most of their content in French. We are only 8 million french canadian and not all of us are netflix subcriber for sure. Even House of Card, they went through the trouble of translating that themselves, and they made a good job too!

    So if a company wants it, they can do it. Translating is not that expensive either. Most companies are just lazy.

    As a Canadian, Amazon ALWAYS has worst deals. I don't get that Amazon craze down in the US.
  • Impulses - Friday, April 18, 2014 - link

    Amazon usually has really good prices in the US, they have an automatic price matching algorithm that in many cases even competes with their own 3rd party marketplace sellers, it's kinda crazy. It makes the prices for niche stuff (camera lenses, hifi headphones, etc) jump like crazy but it's a minor bother. Between Prime (despite the recent price hike), free shipping over $35 even without Prime, and their excellent service and return policies, it's little wonder they keep growing.
  • HisDivineOrder - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link

    If I were Europe, I'd want access to MicroCenter deals, but online before I wanted Newegg, king of the overpricing hardware well above MSRP.

    Then again, I live in the US and I want MicroCenter deals online, too. ;)
  • tunapez - Friday, April 18, 2014 - link

    "they lost me as well as pretty much all my friends money because I tell them where to buty what computer components."

    Ditto. I build two or three high end systems a year for clients, friends & family. Summer of 2012 a family illness forced me to relocate out of state for 6 months and the whole time they would not ship my order to my location. The rep literally told me the only option was to ship and leave unattended at my home and have me arrange for a 'friend' to pick the boxes up and forward them to me...WTF? Really put me in a tight spot when I had more important problems to deal with. Luckily there was a Fry's* within an hours drive. When the "Marketplace" full of drop-ship crap sellers arrived, I stopped using them entirely. My money is my only vote that counts.

    *another sad success story, IMO.
  • Impulses - Friday, April 18, 2014 - link

    I wish I had a Fry's or Microcenter, though CompUSA (now TigerDirect) is quickly evolving in the mold of those two... They just need to start bringing more cases, I like Corsair and all but something besides Corsair and TT would be nice. Cases are the one thing that costs an arm and a leg to ship here and are usually not covered by Shoprunner @ the Egg (which I really don't get, my LCDs weigh more and ship in a similar size box yet that was free).
  • snarfbot - Sunday, April 20, 2014 - link

    yea remember when newegg was good? the gold standard even. sometimes there might be one or 2 components to a build that were less expensive on tigerdirect or something. but overall you would save money by buying it all from newegg because you only had to pay to ship 1 order. they also had a good return policy and customer service.

    nowadays there is virtually no reason to ever buy anything from them. bravo.

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