News Framework pauses U.S. sales of base Laptop 13 models due to tariffs — company says other vendors are pausing sales too, but not making announcements

[Admin]

The cheapest Framework Laptop 13s powered by a Core Ultra 5 125H or Ryzen 5 7640U becomes temporarily unavailable in the U.S.

Framework pauses U.S. sales of base Laptop 13 models due to tariffs — company says other vendors are pausing sales too, but not making announcements : Read more

 

[heffeque]

Luckily the rest of the world will have the prices unchanged.

 

[M0rtis]

Luckily the rest of the world will have the prices unchanged.

For now.
You know how it usually goes. The US has the lowest prices and prices for the rest of the world start from that baseline. Companies will find an excuse to charge more.

 

[TechieTwo]

I'd suggest that sellers get in touch with reality or they are going to lose a lot of sales. The U.S. is a pretty big market and if you want to sell here then you need to get with the program.

 

[jlake3]

I'd suggest that sellers get in touch with reality or they are going to lose a lot of sales. The U.S. is a pretty big market and if you want to sell here then you need to get with the program.

The tariff on Taiwan is 34%. Low-end laptops do not have that kind of margin to simply eat that cost, and Framework apparently doesn’t see a market for these models if they pass the cost through.

Companies aren’t going to keep selling the exact same product at the exact same price just to keep the US market happy and the “units sold” number from dropping if they have to run a loss to do it.

I’d expect that larger OEMs are going to be quietly downgrading what you get for a given MSRP and using generational updates to hide discontinuations and reshuffles model numbers, so if the situation continues that will be something to watch out for.

 

[Notton]

The world's largest importer of computers in 2023 was USA, and by a large margin, it's around 1/3.
However, it's not like there isn't a huge market outside of the USA. EU and Asia account for roughly 2/3.

It remains to be seen how much American purchasing power (money), or confidence (save for an emergency or spend/invest) will be left in the consumer market in the near future.
Because if you know a bit of history, the Wall street crash of 1929, and 2008 subprime loan comes to mind.

 

[CelicaGT]

I'd suggest that sellers get in touch with reality or they are going to lose a lot of sales. The U.S. is a pretty big market and if you want to sell here then you need to get with the program.

The sales are already lost, just not by choice. All these companies will lose money if they continue to ship product to the USA. They are simply cutting their losses here and it makes sense. My employer shipped billions of dollars in inventory from the US to Canada. Enough for four years of supply to our Canadian customers...
We can only do this because our product stack evolves much more slowly than in the computer business.

 

[Heiro78]

I'd suggest that sellers get in touch with reality or they are going to lose a lot of sales. The U.S. is a pretty big market and if you want to sell here then you need to get with the program.

Framework is practically a startup niche product. Razer is an established high end product. They both have their known costs and trade offs. I believe Framework when they say they'd be selling their most affordable laptop at a loss. They are already upfront expensive products that most consumers dont understand how they will last longer

 

[Daniel15]

For now.
You know how it usually goes. The US has the lowest prices and prices for the rest of the world start from that baseline.

Not always... A lot of the time, products are cheaper in China or Japan. With the Nintendo Switch 2, the US price is higher than some other countries, including Australia and the UK, and that's not factoring in the tariffs (Nintendo haven't announced a higher price due to tariffs yet).

One thing to keep in mind when comparing prices is that advertised prices in the USA exclude sales tax, whereas advertised prices in most other countries include sales tax. You need to subtract sales tax for it to be a fair comparison.

 

[M0rtis]

Not always... A lot of the time, products are cheaper in China or Japan. With the Nintendo Switch 2, the US price is higher than some other countries, including Australia and the UK, and that's not factoring in the tariffs (Nintendo haven't announced a higher price due to tariffs yet).

One thing to keep in mind when comparing prices is that advertised prices in the USA exclude sales tax, whereas advertised prices in most other countries include sales tax. You need to subtract sales tax for it to be a fair comparison.

Maybe for a few odd items but in general the US price is lower.

 

[Daniel15]

Maybe for a few odd items but in general the US price is lower.

Do you have some examples of common products which are cheaper in the USA than China?

 

[Eximo]

I believe he is referencing primarily computers and computer components, and mostly from a Western perspective.

VAT and the like in many other countries are a significant expense on top of the base product as compared to the US.

I see $1350 (9,999) for RTX 5080 in China, and if MSRPs are anything to go by that would be $1200 in the US. Which isn't saying much since only a small percentage of the cards are ever getting that low.

Now, there is also sales tax in the US, but that varies by location, so you don't ever see it on marketing. So take any price and add 0-11% depending on state and municipality.

US and UK prices are generally similar, but the pound still commands more value. So effective pay is more (around 30% at the moment)

Tariffs just change who pays. VAT it is the consumer, Tariffs it is the supplier on import.

 

[M0rtis]

I guess I have a slightly different POV since I'm from a 3rd world country (India) and for some things we often think of the prices with the currency exchange rate at the back of our minds. This is just a hypothetical example with rounded off figures.

Say an iPhone costs $1000, our exchange rate is INR 80 to a $ so as far as Im concerned, it costs 80000 INR in the USA
That same iPhone usually cost the same amount in Euros and GBP
So for us the iPhone costs 90*1000 Euros = 90000 INR in Europe
and 100*1000 GBP = 100000 INR in the UK

So yeah from an outsider's POV, things are usually cheaper in the USA. Obviously there are exceptions and its not just limited to tech stuff but its true for most international mass market items.