HP 15C LE back in stock at HP Home Store

[Michael de Estrada]

I just placed an order here for an HP 15C LE for $89.99 with an HPSAVE10 coupon with free shipping and 8.25% Texas sales tax for a total of $97.41. The order did complete successfully at checkout.

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hmm, doesn't seem to work from non-US addresses:-(

[Michael de Estrada]

Unfortunately, I don't think any of the HP online stores in the USA will ship internationally, which is one of the reasons why outfits like SC can get away with their price gouging.

[bill platt]

I'm not so sure I'd call it gouging. I am amazed he can make any money at all.

[Michael de Estrada]

He's currently selling them for $199.99 + shipping and I'm sure he paid a lot less than retail for his stock, so sounds like gouging to me.

[bill platt]

So he makes $100. After all the hassle and high maintenance to get them to market, he won't make a dime. It is a business not a hobby...

[Michael de Estrada]

He should make a lot more than that, and it's pretty simple to run that type of business. There are plenty of other internet resellers that can manage to make out very well without making a >100% profit per unit. By buying up a lot of initial stock, he prevented buyers from getting them at lower pricers from other less greedy resellers. Heck, I could have bought 20 or so and turned them for a handsome profit. Throwing them in boxes and shipping them is pretty easy.

[bill platt]

"easy" but time consuming. I like to make $100 for an hour's labor, not $10...

That's what I mean by this.

[Quan]

The coupon SAVE15HP also works!

[Michael de Estrada]

Good catch ! I didn't think to google on hp coupon codes. It's good through 9/30. I would have saved another $5.41.

Edited: 26 Sept 2011, 7:41 p.m.

[Howard Owen]

Thanks! I just ordered my 3rd 15C LE for 84.99 plus $7.01 CA tax and free shipping.

[Michael de Estrada]

Sounds like California state sales tax is the same as Texas, namely 8.25%.

[Roger Blake]

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Sounds like California state sales tax is the same as Texas, namely 8.25%.

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think of us poor Brits - after all the hassle of having it shipped from USA we are stung for 20% tax + a few extra quid for handling fees !

Even if the HP-15C/LE eventually appeared over here we'd still be paying that extra 20% :-(

[Michael de Estrada]

Is that your VAT ? Whenever I ship a calc to someone in Europe, I always show it as a "gift" on the customs form with a value of $0.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Good morning!

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Is that your VAT ? Whenever I ship a calc to someone in Europe, I always show it as a "gift" on the customs form with a value of $0.

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Please don't do that without talking to your buyer first! Our customs officers are not stupid! Whenever I collect parcels from overseas at customs, they ask to be shown either printouts of eBay transactions, invoices, credit card slips, or PayPal invoices. If I can't produce any of these of if they have any doubt about them, they will determine the value of the goods by themselves. Usually much higher than what I actually paid.

Declaring something as "gift" does not help at all because taxation on gifts is exactly the same as for purchased items. For customs and taxation, it does not matter at all who paid for the item in the first place!
And if the value declared on the parcel is lower than the actual value (like your 0$ statement) they may actually accuse me of attempted tax fraud which is a serious criminal offence.

Another good reason for declaring the real value is the package insurace. If ever something gets lost (has not happened to me yet) you will be reimbursed the declared value. 0$ does not really help.

And regarding that "awful" VAT: For me, this is one of the best and fairest taxes. A direct tax on consumation. People who can afford more expensive goods and services pay more than those who can't. No loopholes for the rich and smart. In return for these taxes, we (at least here in Germany) pay nothing to send our children to school, college and university, have roads with very few potholes, get excellent medical services at moderate cost (for everybody!) and so on. I rather pay VAT on my toys than heaps of money for all these things!

Regards,
max

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

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think of us poor Brits - after all the hassle of having it shipped from USA we are stung for 20% tax + a few extra quid for handling fees !

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Poor Brits? That's because you don't know the outrageous Brazilian taxes. As an example, in April I received two serial cables from HP with an enclosed no charge invoice. The declared value had been $4.00 ($2.00 each). There was a notice on the bottom of the invoice that read "NO CHARGE INVOICE: Value for Customs purpose only". Despite of this, that's what I've been charged:

 Declared value: US$  4.00

     Import tax: US$  2.40   (60 %)

     ICMS (VAT): U$$  0.72   (18 %)

           GNRE: U$$  0.68

   Customs fees: U$$ 15.00    

          Total: U$$ 18.80

Items are charged over the declared value even they are declared as gifts. I was lucky once, when I received a $150.00 HP-50g from Samson Cables and wasn't charged anything. I guess there was an important soccer game going on when it arrived at Customs :-)

[Artur-Brazil]

Hi, Gerson

In Brazil, our Customs do this:
- by sampling they add the shipping costs to the items value and apply just 60% over the total - this is the Federal tax;
- so, they apply another 22% (I believe this is the correct percentual) over the total added to the Federal tax; so, once more the same percentual over all;

At the final, you will pay 94% of Federal and local tax; and more something on your Credit Card international transaction, completing almost exact 100% !!!!

Very nice, don't you agree?

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

Olá Artur,

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At the final, you will pay 94% of Federal and local tax; and more something on your Credit Card international transaction, completing almost exact 100% !!!!

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I can't help thinking about our hero from Minas who risked his neck (and lost it) because he was not pleased with the 20% tax Portugal charged on gold extraction...

Libertas quae sera tamen

Gerson.

[Michael de Estrada]

I went ahead and ordered my 4th with the SAVE15HP coupon for a total of $92 even, including Texas sales tax. Now I can have a second one for use when I travel without fear of losing or breaking it.

Edited: 27 Sept 2011, 12:38 a.m.

[Howard Owen]

I wish I could come up with as plausible a reason for buying mine. :)

[Geoffrey Wang]

OOS

[Michael de Estrada]

Wow ! Looks like the profiteers were watching. Well, I guess we'll be seeing a bunch more TAS listings. -(

[Jim Johnson]

As noted before the HP-15cLE is "Out Of Stock" at the HP Home site (but is curiously available on their business site for $99.99). This seems to be rather insane. HP receives stock. Within a few days (or 24 hours) sells out. The OOS message goes up for a week or two. Then more stock arrives and the same cycle repeats itself. I'm curious about why the Chinese contract manufacturer is having difficulty keeping these in stock since they seem to be "selling like hotcak.."...er, HP calculators!

It still seems a bit unfair that some "entreprenuers" are profitting purely from the fact that HP's Chinese CM can't simply deliver about 500,000 of these calculators to about 10 distributors.

[Michael de Estrada]

They might not be available at the business site, but not indicate this until you attempt to complete checkout. Also, the business site does not offer free shipping, and coupons don't always work unless you are a "partner". I'm not quite sure what's going on with this on again off again business at the home site, but I suspect that more are on the way and perhaps in another month there will be sufficient stock to prevent this problem. Anyways, the prices are already starting to come down on TAS as it's been getting flooded with listings lately.

[Geoffrey Wang]

I bought one from SMB a couple of days ago and shipped the next day. More expensive than the Home site by $15-$20 out the door, but at least they have it available.

[Michael de Estrada]

The two that I ordered yesterday with free shipping are already in my city and due to be delivered tomorrow. They were drop shipped from the same distribution centers in Memphis, TN and Olive Branch, MS as all the other online stores. So, I think they come from common stock, and when they are OOS for one store they are probably OOS for all others. It's probably a FIFO stocking system.