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Comment by abdelhadikhiati | Hacker News Reader

Raspberry still costs more than 100$ in my country, due the rarity of such tools sometimes we found ourselves obliged to buy it with that price and pay the difference, and even though this is such a great step, i really doubt it would have any effect on 3rd world countries where this is really needed.

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Same, in Tunisia a B model (with no SD or anything) will go around 70$. This is mainly due to state imposed taxes on "luxury products".

I tried importing one, but customs ended up charging me almost double the unit price just to let it through. The only cheap solution to get one in Tunisia is to have someone buy it for you in europe and then bring it back in his luggage.

Can you send something like this via lettermail to your country?

Customs will check the package and if it contains any goods that they think should be taxed they'll call you and give you a quote. If you pay then you can get your package. If you don't it will sit on a shelf for-ever.

Sounds like a big market opportunity (if a market exists!) - import a couple of thousand and resell them at a nice markup.

Markup + import tax (as another commenter remarked) would not really allow a competitive price range. Only way to get around that would be to assemble it in the country itself (assuming the components can be imported without those taxes)

Why the huge difference in costs..? International shipping..?

I suspect it's due to the combination of low sales volumes and import taxes. Here in Chile, Pi B's are around $50–60. Though to be fair, traditional PCs and laptops are more expensive than in the US (but not 2x as expensive).

I know Brazil has prohibitive import duties on electronics, does this also apply to Chile?

But books, magazines, etc. don't pay taxes. That's why this free Rpi with MagPi #40 is awesome: you don't have to pay taxes at all.

> But books, magazines, etc. don't pay taxes. That's why this free Rpi with MagPi #40 is awesome: you don't have to pay taxes at all.

I assume you mean in Brazil? Books and very expensive in Chile, compared to other things. And I believe it's because they are heavily taxed. I don't know about magazines, though.

Yes, I meant Brazil.

Tax is not just based on the price. If the fact that you were getting it for free were good enough to avoid import taxes, everyone would just have friends in other countries send them 'gifts'.

Well, in Brazil books are exempt and stuff that gets shipped gratis along with them doesn't get taxed. Usually, it's CDs and once I did see software shipped as Manual+free CD in order to evade taxes. I was quite surprised (and a tad disappointed) that it worked, but I don't think it would work with larger products.

> I know Brazil has prohibitive import duties on electronics, does this also apply to Chile?

To be honest, I'm not sure. VAT here is 19%, so if you are assessed duties on things you bring, you'll often pay that rate. However, I don't know what the rates are like for merchants importhing goods for sale.

It's almost nonexistent in the market, so people having it, take advantage and sell it for imaginary prices compared to the original prices.

If there is a user group, then purchasing together and dividing costs might make life a little easier. could be a fun base to work on for making more hardware available too.

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