Norse Store pricing policy - warning UK residents

[LFC4ever]

If anyone from the UK is planning on buying online from this store please be aware that you will be shown a total Euro price for your basket. When you log in if you are from the UK it will auto convert to GBP and will not give you the option to pay in Euros. Problem is they use the conversion rate to uplift the total cost by approximately 20%, thus singling out UK customers to pay a higher price than any other EU customer. Which, as I've pointed out to them is, I believe, illegal:

 

Equal prices for foreigners

As an EU national, you cannot be charged a higher price than local residents when buying products or services anywhere else in the EU

 

Their justification to me was as follows:

 

Thank you for the message.

Unfortunately it is not possible to change currency when shopping in the online store - our system automatically detects your location.
There are many reasons why the prices are as they are online - one is that they have to correspond with the price levels of our worldwide wholesalers.

Kind regards
Kirstine
Norse Store

 

I fully understand that if I go into a store in the UK prices for their goods will vary from say Denmark or Germany. But you cannot artificially inflate prices online for residents of one EU country in order to price discriminate against them, and them alone!!!!! This is very different from say Real McCoy refusing to ship from Japan in order to price protect their EU distributors. This is within the EU and is both unethical and I believe illegal. I hope they change this policy with immediate effect. 

I thought I would warn UK members in case they don't notice this when purchasing online from this company.

 

[Niro]

Wonder if you used a VPN proxy, would they notice and cancel order if you paid in euro and shipping destination is UK.

[LFC4ever]

Good point, not sure if they default to GBP from the address field or IP address. I think it's the country address. However what they're doing is against EU law. I've also commented on their website page. I guess they'd ave a real issue if we joined the Euro as they are trying to hide the uplift by putting in a false exchange rate. That's the unethical bit - the DKK Euro exchange rate on their site is spot on as per Xe.com, but they then auto change to GBP from Euros at check out and do not even tell you they are applying a possibly illegal 20 per cent uplift to the price. So they are doing something I believe is illegal but not even telling the customer they are charging 20% more than the customer believes they are actually paying. Underhand at best fraudulent at worst. They did not do this last summer so I can only suspect there UK wholesalers were more expensive than the rest of the EU and complained they were being undercut so they are using this as a cheap and quick way of segregating and isolating the UK market. Sorry, you can't do that, we're not in the Euro (neither is Denmark!) but we are in the EU! And we're still paying VAT at Denmark rates on these purchases! In fact we're paying them more VAT because they've upped the price!

[Geeman]

If memory serves me right Norse Store don't really sell anything you couldn't buy from a uk store so screw em and take your business elsewhere

[LFC4ever]

Yes I've already decided they won't be on my list of future purchases........

[LFC4ever]

And they're STILL trying to say it's OK!!!!!!!

 

I have checked up on the price for the those items and it is correct. 

There are many reasons why the prices are as they are online – one is that they have to correspond with the price levels of our worldwide wholesalers. 

The other are local taxes, currency vareties etc. 

Shipping price is also one more reason for different pricing – clients don’t pay full price for the shipping, we are covering a part of it.. 

So I’m sorry to say, but we can’t offer you to pay in other currency, everything is setup like it is for a reason, hope you can understand our point. 

Have a great day!

Please let me know if you need further assistance. 

Best regards 

Marcin Cylkowski

Trying to explain you can't do this!!!! 

Hi Marcin

Thank you for your reply. Taxes are the same for all EU residents buying online from Norse Store so this is not relevant. Shipping is also irrelevant unless you charge a markedly higher price for delivery to all other EU countries which you don't. The real reason is that because your UK brick and mortar sellers charge a markedly higher price than other EU distributors you are using price discrimination against the UK from your online store to artificially inflate the Uk price offered by your online store to keep this in line with UK brick and mortar distributors presumably because they complained about being undercut. Let's be clear you have adopted this policy in the last 6 months. 

As you say :

"There are many reasons why the prices are as they are online – one is that they have to correspond with the price levels of our worldwide wholesalers. "

 

You can certainly do this from your online store to say control US or Japanese pricing. What is not allowed is to price discriminate against another EU country in this case the UK. You are essentially saying that every EU resident purchasing from your online store pays one price and every UK resident buying from the same source pays approximately 20% more in order to keep prices online with UK brick and mortar distributors. 

This is a matter of principle and fairness to me now so I think the only alternative I have is to raise this with the new EU price discrimination complaints process announced this month and let them decide.

Thanks

 

 

 

[xchen]

can you please not use comic sans font for your posts bro

 

comic sans one of worst font ever made. don't use this font people

[Geeman]

can you please not use comic sans font for your posts bro

 

comic sans one of worst font ever made. don't use this font people

HAHAHA HA This ^^^

[Niro]

Yea I was going to say, that it seems like there is no point in arguing against them and just send in a complaint to some EU commission.

[LFC4ever]

Agreed, there's a new easy to use process apparently!

Apologies to all offended by the font.