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Comment by ornornor | Hacker News Reader

It’ll be fine. Switzerland isn’t in the EU and doesn’t have amazon. Instead amazon ships for free from .fr,de,it and include the reduced vat etc so you don’t have anything extra to pay when receiving. Me for returns they cover the actual shipping costs back to their warehouses.

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Do you live in Switzerland? Only a fraction of what’s listed on amazon.de or amazon.fr will ship to Switzerland. Pretty much no electronics will ship to for example. The China loop hole was closed recently so that alibaba and the like are now unavailable. Often you just have to suck it up and pay “Swiss” prices from a local reseller.

And swiss prices are absolutely outrageous. In addition to lots of taxes and duties on certain goods, labour prices in switzerland are sky-high, so visiting a retailer there is usually more expensive than a short shopping trip to France/Germany/Italy...

I don’t think there is duty on most things. VAT is 7.7%. What jacks up the price is retailers thinking « this is Switzerland, people are used to pay through the nose so why not make an extra 20% »

What irks me the most is companies that have no presence in CH but who will ship to CH, and when you go to their website everything is 20–30% more expensive compared to their .de or .fr store (where vat is 20%!). Even though shipping is extra, and it all ships from the same warehouse in Germany or Ireland. Like misterspecs, or revolutioncycles.

Electronics are cheaper in Switzerland

I’d say a third of the stuff ships. Sometimes I can find the item locally for a comparable price, but sometimes I’m SOL. It could be better but it also forces me to reevaluate how much I really need something, and reduce on clutter.

Which isn't too bad on electronics (including camera equipment and such) where Swiss prices are quite reasonable.

Now for the rest...

You left out the part where most items on amazon don’t ship to Switzerland. The probably only item with free shipping is books.

Switzerland is in the single market. The UK loses access to the single market on January the 1st so that comparison doesn't stand up.

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