CIJ vs. MIA Offsets

[woster]

But you know what really "pisses" me of is that given the low dollar, the prices remain the same. What is that all about???
I mean, come on...Even at 1500 Us dollar retail price, which is high (around 1100 Euro, give or take) , how come it still be 1700 Euro??? I call this theft. No more or less.

If you want to know more about this theft, you should definitely watch this item on Dutch television. It's in Dutch language though, so it might not be suitable for other forum members
http://www.novatv.nl/novaplayer/player1 ... &x=11&y=13

For all non-Dutch speakers, the problem is this: there is certain European law, called 'branding law' or something like that. Because of this law shops in the EU are forbidden to import goods from outside the E.U. by themselves (which is called parallel import in Holland). Thereby, companies based in the U.S. and elsewhere can completely determine by which ways their products enter the European market, and at what price. As we all know, this results in overpriced goods, because shop and consumers basically have nowhere else to go. So yeah, the US $ might be cheap compared to the €, but consumers are not benefiting from it.
Way to go EU 

[haesslich]

the idea behind this is to safe the european market and give the eu-produced-goods a better start. well, this may be true for our cornflakes ;-) but as far as guitars are concerned, the eu based producers seem to like the price-structure and are not noticable cheaper.
i would not be shocked if some of the american guys here would tell me, that framus guitars are more than 20% cheaper in the us, than they are here.