deskthority

ingmar wrote: 24 Apr 2019, 08:28 They are beautiful, but man are they expensive ... Europeans seem to be getting a particularly raw deal. The bare minimum for my daily driver (Alphas + TKL + ISO + NorDE) would set me back 140 bucks in the US. The same set comes to 176 €, which translates to 197 $ or so. Yes, US prices don't factor in taxes, but a 40% European surcharge is ridiculous even so.

You cannot put a price on beauty though, can you

For real though, I do feel your pain.

ingmar wrote: 24 Apr 2019, 08:28 They are beautiful, but man are they expensive ... Europeans seem to be getting a particularly raw deal. The bare minimum for my daily driver (Alphas + TKL + ISO + NorDE) would set me back 140 bucks in the US. The same set comes to 176 €, which translates to 197 $ or so. Yes, US prices don't factor in taxes, but a 40% European surcharge is ridiculous even so.

It's hard to get around the VAT. You can always buy directly from TKC and take care of the import fees/taxes yourself. I really can't tell you how much that will be. With Mykeyboard.eu you know exactly what you're getting.

I know in Canada it's a brokerage fee ($10 with Canada Post, possibly more with other carriers) + customs duty (6%) + taxes (GST %5). Sometimes it gets thru without getting charged, but you never know. Hope this helps.

Progress as of April 25:





Two weeks to go

As of April 30:

ingmar wrote: 24 Apr 2019, 08:28 They are beautiful, but man are they expensive ... Europeans seem to be getting a particularly raw deal. The bare minimum for my daily driver (Alphas + TKL + ISO + NorDE) would set me back 140 bucks in the US. The same set comes to 176 €, which translates to 197 $ or so. Yes, US prices don't factor in taxes, but a 40% European surcharge is ridiculous even so.

I know it seems like so (I felt the same) but it's not actually the case. You included postage to your Europe price but not to the US one. Remember that they are manufactured in the US so the company/supplier already has to pay for one postage to Europe. When working out VAT the postage costs are included in the total price.

Your set shipped to your home door = 176eur

Your set from the (US + postage) * VAT = ($140 + $23.79 ) * 1.2 = $196.5 = 175.5eur

So you would save 50 cents. In some countries VAT is smaller but also in some countries it's bigger. I used the VAT of Austria for this seeing where you are from. For me (Finland) it would be 24%.

Your first sentence is the key: They are beautiful, but man are they expensive.

ingmar wrote: 24 Apr 2019, 08:28 They are beautiful, but man are they expensive ... Europeans seem to be getting a particularly raw deal. The bare minimum for my daily driver (Alphas + TKL + ISO + NorDE) would set me back 140 bucks in the US. The same set comes to 176 €, which translates to 197 $ or so. Yes, US prices don't factor in taxes, but a 40% European surcharge is ridiculous even so.

Actually, pricing is very competitive (dare I say good...) at the quantities we are selling.

Not sure if I mentioned it already in this thread, but if Mykeyboard.eu pricing is unfair for your region or you feel you are getting a raw deal, then you can order directly from TKC. You take care of shipping, taxes, and import fees. There are pros and cons, Mykeyboard is providing this service close to you and, in theory, shipping should be more reliable, and so on.

We will buy extras, in case you change your mind later

ilezia wrote: 02 May 2019, 12:00You included postage to your Europe price but not to the US one.

Actually, I did not. I compared prices as quoted on the respective websites. In fact, mykeyboard.eu charges additional shipping fees, between 0 € (Belgium only) and 31,50 € (Iceland), depending on country. (For Finland it's an additional 17 €.)

Remember that they are manufactured in the US so the company/supplier already has to pay for one postage to Europe.

That goes without saying, but shipping in bulk really can't be compared to hundreds of individual deliveries. In fact, the sole reason for using a European proxy would be to save on shipping. Also, your argument is somewhat invalidated by zFrontier's prices, which are much closer to the US prices. In fact ordering via Asia would be the cheapest solution for many Europeans, too, myself included. I rest my case.

voodoo6k wrote: 02 May 2019, 13:24Actually, pricing is very competitive (dare I say good...) at the quantities we are selling.

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree here. No hard feelings.

Not sure if I mentioned it already in this thread, but if Mykeyboard.eu pricing is unfair for your region or you feel you are getting a raw deal, then you can order directly from TKC.

Yes, of course. Or via zFrontier, who seem to be offering a better deal. Thanks for the clarification.

ingmar wrote: 02 May 2019, 14:39

ilezia wrote: 02 May 2019, 12:00You included postage to your Europe price but not to the US one.

Actually, I did not. I compared prices as quoted on the respective websites. In fact, mykeyboard.eu charges additional shipping fees, between 0 € (Belgium only) and 31,50 € (Iceland), depending on country. (For Finland it's an additional 17 €.)

Remember that they are manufactured in the US so the company/supplier already has to pay for one postage to Europe.

That goes without saying, but shipping in bulk really can't be compared to hundreds of individual deliveries. In fact, the sole reason for using a European proxy would be to save on shipping. Also, your argument is somewhat invalidated by zFrontier's prices, which are much closer to the US prices. In fact ordering via Asia would be the cheapest solution for many Europeans, too, myself included. I rest my case.

You have 3 proxy options!

ingmar wrote: 02 May 2019, 14:39

ilezia wrote: 02 May 2019, 12:00You included postage to your Europe price but not to the US one.

Actually, I did not. I compared prices as quoted on the respective websites. In fact, mykeyboard.eu charges additional shipping fees, between 0 € (Belgium only) and 31,50 € (Iceland), depending on country. (For Finland it's an additional 17 €.)

Remember that they are manufactured in the US so the company/supplier already has to pay for one postage to Europe.

That goes without saying, but shipping in bulk really can't be compared to hundreds of individual deliveries. In fact, the sole reason for using a European proxy would be to save on shipping. Also, your argument is somewhat invalidated by zFrontier's prices, which are much closer to the US prices. In fact ordering via Asia would be the cheapest solution for many Europeans, too, myself included. I rest my case.

My bad, I thought you did as you said 176 eur. This made sense to me as the items you have listed cost a total of 166eur and the shipping to Austria is 10eur.

But you are correct that shipping to some countries is pretty expensive and it seems like zFrontier ships for free on orders over $100. I didn't notice this and yes this does make it the cheapest option so go for it.

In my case the most expensive option for me would be to order from the US, for 1 euro less I could order the same items from EU. If I ordered from zFrontier I would make a saving of 8eur over the EU price (a difference of 6%, not 40%).

As of May 7:

Hey all, just a reminder that our group buy ends today!

Thanks for the support!

Cheers

Last call: GB closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT / 6:59 a.m. UTC

May 9:

Final order numbers:

(Copied from geekhack)

Update

✓ Order placed
✓ Graphics
✓ Payment
☐ Production (started)

The order was placed shortly after the group buy ended. About ~1 week to compile the proxies' numbers and evaluate how many extras we would each get. Well over 100 in total.

The vectors graphics were finalized and approved a while back. We re-confirmed various details about the legends (eg. equal size Numpad symbols, scale of novelties, etc.)

All our proxies (ahem) have finally paid, just last week. There was an error in the invoice SP sent, and it took an extra week to get the updated invoices. The good news is, detecting the error now means less delays in the future.

We were quoted at 10 weeks (~end August) for production end/shipping. However, that included several weeks for in-house custom colour matching, which was already done (last year!) when I ordered the samples. So, there's potential for cutting down production time quite a bit, depending on whether they need to redo the colour matching. I haven't got a newer time estimate (other than 10 weeks). For now, they have started to work on various molds. Therefore, we can say that, for all practical purposes, production has started!

I will update when I have further information.

Cheers!

Currently shipping from manufacturer!