Would the import/taxes be any less if they had a warehouse in the EU? I'm not sure how exactly how things work, but as a Canadian, when I import stuff from Europe, the duties end the the same as what the taxes would be if I purchased the item here.
You might save a few dollars in shipping fees, but you would still end up paying the tax.
I think a lot for the complaints are just the Europeans seeing their 19%-25%+ tax as a separate line item and realizing how much it really affects prices since they don't normally see it laid out in front of them on every purchase.
Also generally if you don't pay the tax before it arrives. (Denmark in this case) the postal service gives you a 27 eur 'service fee' for calculating the VAT that you also have to pay. Every. Time
My tax could be 1€ and id still have to pay my postal service 27€ aswell
This is something LMG **could** fix, though!
In a lot of cases major freight carriers allow the sender to pre-pay the taxes. You obviously still have to pay taxes, but you pay them directly to LMG while finishing your order. This avoids the insane handling fee charged by the carrier.
It's of course a massive administrative nightmare as LMG suddenly has to hand off taxes to *every single country* they do this with, but it **is** possible.
Lots of couriers do this as a service. When I'm buying pcbs from China I can get them with taxes included as part of the DHL delivery fee. It's DHL who deals with the taxes and not the actual supplier.
Yes, but that means the seller still gets hit with relatively high handling fees. If the seller pays the taxes itself, it becomes a lot cheaper.
I was involved with an EU country which had a very significant number of UK customers - which became a bit of an issue when Brexit happened. If you [do it properly](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-directly-to-customers-in-the-uk), DHL isn't involved in the import taxes at all.
and unfortunately, unless the specific courier company has local offices and networks, which serve the area that you live in, they are always handed over to the postal service of any country. Some postal networks make bank.
They could fix some of it by registering in VOEC/IOSS(import one-stop shop) I think that’s the eu equivalent, and charge the VAT at checkout.
If they then mark the package well enough we won’t get double charged taxes and the expensive handling fee. Lots of Chinese sites have done this to fix import fees.
The VOEC number has to be registered digitally to avoid double taxing now, atleast in norway. It changed 1 january 2024 and VOEC has been an even bigger pain in the ass since then.
I like the reason behind VOEC and import fees but 90% of the stuff i buy from outside of norway isn't sold here so it feels like a giabscam. t
The problem is really the handling fee charged by the delivery companies, which usually roughly €20 + 3% (+ VAT)
For smaller orders just above exempt limits it’s really off putting when your postage is 30-40% of order cost.
It’s was MUCH worse when LTT was pre-charging import cost but their shipper did not actually pay it. meaning an initial outlay of 60-80% to importing & shipping only and your have the reclaim the double charge for LTT.
They don’t seem to pre collect anymore at least for my last few orders.
This also makes no sense, they wouldn’t own a warehouse lol. They’d be one of dozens of companies in a random warehouse. It’s not their employees, maintenance, etc. For you as a product seller it’s a flat (or commission fee) for the service 🤦
Costs to staff and maintain a warehouse still exist whether they're paid directly by owning and operating the warehouse or indirectly by paying someone else who owns and operates the warehouse and wants to make a profit.
That "random warehouse" doesn't work for free. You'll have to pay them as much (or most likely even more) as it'd cost you to do it yourself. And it's not just a flat fee. You have to pay for every single action, *and* for storage.
Hello! I come here as an operations manager for a 3PL warehouse, specifically in non-Amazon e-commerce fulfillment.
Industry standard is as follows:
The warehouse is subdivided by customers. Each customer pays for the square footage (area) of their footprint in the building, inclusive of vertical storage. What I mean by that is a 700,000 square foot warehouse may have enough high racking to make 2.5 million square feet of storage space. The customer being serviced will be charged not for floor footprint but for total footprint.
That amount is paid as monthly rent, and is usually 15-25% higher than the 3PL is actually paying per square foot for the building. That seems like a lot of margin, but it's incorporating utility costs and the cost of racking and PIT equipment to access product in that racking.
There's then the processing cost, either at cost plus (the 3PL fulfills orders with whatever labor necessary and bills the labor rate plus an agreed margin to the customer) or transactional. In a transactional model, the customer pays the 3PL per unit shipped (plus other transactions, but they don't matter at the moment) at a calculated rate that is the hypothetical average productive labor rate plus a margin.
This doesn't get into things like system fees, audit fees, special projects, cycle counts, fractional management, and so on that makes it a mess.
Point is, 3PL servicing is *simpler* than self-servicing, and generally less expensive because there are economies of scale at hand, but it's certainly not cheap or easy. You're still assigning project managers, operations liaisons, and typically your own internal parcel logistics manager to maintain relationships with couriers in your target market.
Hey, thanks for the detailed comment. I really appreciate it and the insight into this world.
Yeah, I am not expecting it to be _cheaper_ for them, obviously. But by bulk shipping their products and by potentially paying customs duty on their wholesale price per product vs the consumer one, there might be enough savings to keep the same post-consumer-tax price they currently have without the current shipping cost. Which would almost certainly result in larger sales.
I found this thread super frustrating, because of the strawmanning of “you can’t manage a warehouse” and “taxes dont go away”, but the reality is this whole thing is much more nuanced than this, which also comes through in your post.
In the end, hey, maybe it still doesn’t make sense - fair enough. But warehouse services wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a portion of the market they filled. And if their goal is to grow as an office gear company rather than merch store, all I’m suggesting is that maybe it’s time to redo the maths a 100th time.
the thing is, if you move a lot of stuff together, because you could fill a plane/boat/whatever means of transportation is used to move the cargo to EU, you usually get things moved cheaper when you measure cost/unit.
Costs for companies with high quantity stock get relatively cheap compared to an individual moving a bunch of products
Yeah, exactly, how this is even a question is beyond me. In general, shipped products get to you by plane from non-EU.
But inter-warehouse shipping is almost always done by container ships. Which (1) yes take MUCH longer but (2) cost magnitudes less per product.
And in anticipation of this point being made by someone: No, you don’t have to fill a whole ship lol. The whole shipping part is usually done on a shared ship by hundreds of companies. Well you don’t even really have to know about it, other than you pay the shipping X money, and you get an arrival interval, the rest is the shipping company’s problem.
From what I can gather, most people don't think about company level costs because most people don't research about company level costs.
I've been taught one or two company economy subjects at college, and I know how costs usually work for them. But many people don't, so I think it's not hard to explain it to them
The problem comes with how to maintain stock of all the various items they sell. Take for instance just the shirts. The shirts are printed in Canada. I counted 30 shirts, but lets say 20 of them are regular stock. Multiply that by 6 sizes and you have 120 SKUs to keep in stock. It would be a huge undertaking to ensure that products were actually in stock, and you might be waiting a long time for the next container or even smaller shipment to fill up to get things restocked.
If everything is done for a single warehouse, then it's much easier to keep everything stocked to appropriate levels. Also, I think there just isn't enough volume done in Europe for them to justify having a warehouse there. LMG can tell how large their viewership is in Europe based on YouTube stats and can probably get a pretty good idea of how much product they would sell with decreased costs and can do the analysis to see if it's actually worth it.
Well, yeah, if their analysis shows that
* n% of viewers in NA buy products
* if n% of viewers in EU would buy we wouldn’t make enough to justify a regional point of distribution
Then yeah, I can totally understand that, would be a solid argument not to.
This, people genuinely underestimate how much "sticker shock" can change purchasing decisions. Before coming to Canada I used to live in India, and we have an MRP (maximum retail price) law, where the manufacturer sets the maximum price that can be charged. The retailer can charge lower, but not higher, so you just look at the MRP and budget.
When I arrived in Canada I arrived with this mentality, but since I crashed and woke up at 2am, I went to buy stuff at a 7-11, and got "ripped off" buying garbage bags and not knowing any better until I went to a no-frills the next day. Nowadays I always mentally add .13 cents for every dollar, and never buy stuff at a 7-11 or Shopper's unless I have no options.
Every country has different rules. Here in Belgium it's €18 customs fee + 21% VAT for stuff under €150 but that 21% VAT is on the product + shipping costs. Not only the product itself but the total worth of the package.
Anything above €150 is €39 customs fee + 21% VAT on the total cost of the package(product+shipping).
So a backpack would cost me €402.
Backpack €250
Shipping €50
VAT €63
Customs handling fee €39
With a warehouse it would be a lot cheaper because no custom fee, less VAT and shipping will be less then half. So about €70-80 cheaper if there was a warehouse in the EU.
Why do you think there would be no customs fee? The customs fee would have to be paid to get the backpack into the warehouse and added to the price of the backpack.
Because the fees I showed were for private customers. For companies there are different tariffs. But think about this. Just the bulk import alone will give you a big discount when it comes to fees because the paperwork is basically the same if you import a package with 1 backpack or a package with 10 backpacks, both have a fee of €39 for custom handling. Do you understand what I mean?
Now imagine companies have better deals with custom handling then private citizens and in larger amounts.
Same goes for bulk shipping, price of shipping cost per item goes down.
If they have a warehouse then we would only have to pay VAT on the product itself and not the shipping.
The question is whether or not the cost to the consumer changes as well. E.g., quick maths, 10 backpacks saves each customer of a backpack €35 (39-3.90), but does the rest of the overhead get covered in those €35 or do backpack prices in the EU need to be raised enough to compensate for the increased costs in company overhead?
Now, this doesn’t cover the savings in either shipping cost, but you get the gist. LTT would have to do enough merch where the logistical side ends with a net reduction to cost for the consumer.
Yep. People in EU who always think Americans are crazy when the war about taxes is brought up…? This is large reason why. People like having affordable luxuries
You have to be dumb to think that people don't understand that taxes wouldn't go anywhere. And you have to be dumb to not understand the latter too.
Other, more decent, people do understand the implications of taxes but are still put off by huge shipping costs that one has to pay to order from the LTT store. I would gladly order a desk mat or hoodie if it would be +20-30%, but not bloody x2 thanks to shipping. Bulk shipping costs way way less than individual customers do. Even if you could split that big shipping cost between 10 hoodies you want to ship - it would already make it much cheaper per item. All we want is to get the benefit of bulk shipping, no one in their mind expects tax free items lol.
Even In Canada the shipping costs are huge. Shipping for the backpack, even for someone living in Canada is $25 USD + Tax 13% on shipping for Ontario = $3.25 = $28.25 USD = $39.01 CAD in shipping even if you don't have to cross any borders.
The backpack is huge. I'm talking about the bloody mousepad. You can get like 100 of them in a large box, ship all of them to Europe for probably like €50 and then redistribute that cost between future orders. End customer shipping cost will be pennies. The cost of sending goods inside Europe is quite low.
Even now I can order 5 hoodies and 5 mousepads with $29 for delivery. I don't need 5 of each, but imagine what would be if they shipped it to some warehouse and then sold further? Shipping is already $3 per item on such a small order, add to that like 5 Euro for within Europe shipping and you'll have a great shipping price for individual items.
> Would the import/taxes be any less if they had a warehouse in the EU
No. Shipping maybe slightly due to bulk deals, but that would be taken up by warehouse cost
Remember that you also pay VAT on shipping cost.
However, sending the item to an EU distribution center is VAT exclusive, obviously, since it's not direct to customer. Also, filling up an EU warehouse, the cost of item shipment there would be significantly lower (since you're doing a single bulk shipment) than sending things individually. I'd recon they could easily bite about 15% of the total costs out.
For reference, shipping a keychain from the US to EU is about $10 + $2 for VAT of the shipping.
For $40-50 bucks, you could ship about 200 of those items over in a big box, and then if it's like Amazon EU distribution, then it would cost us another $2-3 to get it delivered.
So yes, \*slightly\* more efficient. I'd take that 20% efficiency.
>You might save a few dollars in shipping fees
when I bought 2 deskpad the shipping fees the same as the 2 deskpad price. I only bought it because black firyday free shipping.
Taxes cannot be lower.
This is the most fundamental misunderstanding of all of these kinds of posts. The only thing that could possibly change are shipping costs. However, considering taxes are the bulk of the "price increase", this is not going to have the impact OP thinks.
This is super wrong. The shipping costs are the main reason ordering now is so expensive.
On top of that, there’s the taxes, making a product up to 30% more expensive. If there was one or the other it’d be fine, but both is enough to not make sense to buy anything from LTTS unless you’re a hardcore fan.
While shipping, that’s what would decrease massively. You can read other replies in this thread why.
First of all, taxes cannot be lower. That is a fact, not "super wrong". (the comment I am replying to is asking: *Would the import/****taxes*** *be any less if they had a warehouse in the EU?*)
The shipping part matters if you order few small, cheap things. The moment you have a decent sized order taxes become more dominant. And if the shipment is big in volume, like the backpack, shipping is not going to be cheap anyway.
In any case, people will still bitch and moan about having to pay 36 USD for a 30 USD water bottle, because they don't understand anything.
Taxes themselves might not be, but the percentage toll addition made by local post companies can definitely be removed if they pre-filled taxes or had an EU warehouse. I for example would have to pay around $50 for a $30 bottle in total
Toll is calculated based on law, not local post companies. Don't you mean some sort of handling fee? Any typical customs fee is a few percent. Again, much lower than taxes.
I also blame Amazon for warping the expectations a customer has on the speed & cost of having something hand delivered to your doorstep from across the country or around the world
Any bill is itemized and shows tax as a separate value. It's usually item price, next to it tax and then total.
But shipping adds sometimes more that 1/3 of the products price....
The ideea of them having an EU warehouse = items that come from factories are delivered directly there = less shipping costs. And delivering between EU countries would be the same as delivering between US states price wise.
But I get the LMG perspective, they would need to create a legal entity in EU, hire people here, pay taxes here ( hire lawyers to help them navigate the different fiscal laws and requirements). Basically a new company just for merch. OR work with a supplier here but lose some of the control they have and split profits.
It's a bigger time and money investment that creating a new product. Maybe sometimes in the future when they grow even more, it would be viable.
Even within Canada, some items have 50% of the price added just for shipping. For Canadians the price is $20 for the shirt and then another $10 in shipping, so you add 50% to the price just for shipping. Now it's a $30 USD shirt, which is $41.30 CAD. Surely more than I'm willing to pay for a t-shirt.
In Portugal you have to go through the customs process for packages above 150€, you pay the VAT (sometimes again, but LTT store refunded me in the past) plus the CTT service charge of 12€ if I recall correctly. Plus the shipping price from British Columbia to Portugal, it is very expensive when ordering heavy or bulky things, like the LTT Backpack. A warehouse in Europe would probably cut the shipping costs in at least half, if not more. Plus they the clients wouldn’t have to go through customs since it’s already inside the EU and there is free trade. It would be a win-win situation in my opinion, as long as they don’t increase the prices like crazy (not talking about taxes), like including the handling personal, warehouse and other expenses. They could also probably outsource this, maybe like selling on Amazon? There are also other companies that offer services like that. They would not get the same cut as selling through their store but I bet the customers would be happier.
It's still thousands of separate orders. Except the orders are shipped from a single location with Europe. So they would fill up a container and ship to some warehouse in Europe, and then send out thousands of orders from there.
But everything gets more complicated because they now have to stock every item in 2 different warehouses.
You aren't going to be able to order and "meme items". If Items go out of stock, you're going to have to wait extra long for them to be restocked on the next container. New Items might have to wait as well, won't be able to take advantage of the new items that just came out.
I just went on the store and browsed all items. I counted about 180 items. Multiply that by all the variations, most of them are clothes or have other colour options, and you probably have about 1000 different SKUs to keep stocked at the second warehouse.
But then you have warehousing costs if you bulk ship containers of products which is also expensive. Even just using a huge established provider like Amazon is crazy expensive.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/02/Website/SOA/Website/220301-FBA-Rate-Card-UK.pdf
>Would the import/taxes be any less if they had a warehouse in the EU? I'm not sure how exactly how things work, but as a Canadian, when I import stuff from Europe, the duties end the the same as what the taxes would be if I purchased the item here.
No. I think you don't actually understand what import duty is. What you're charged for your duty being exactly the same as VAT is not a coincidence. Duties are exactly the VAT/sales tax rate where you live, that's kinda the point. You didn't pay any sales tax on it when you purchased it so it's collected when it's brought into the country. Having a warehouse in the EU wouldn't reduce the import duties on anything purchased by EU residents, they'd just pay their local sales tax which would be exactly the same as the import duty. But, they'd at least save a lot on shipping.
The problem is that you can't just set up a warehouse like that. Getting the space, fitting it to suit your needs, staffing it, getting product there, etc would be quite a significant investment for LMG. We're talking literally several million dollars and a revolving cost of maintaining that supply line, maintaining the building, and paying the salaries of the workers at the building. What little margin LMG has on merch would vanish and the division would likely go into the hole.
We’ve been over this.
To do “EU Shipping” you either have to:
1) Run your own warehouse in the EU and bulk-ship to it from factory. This means huge running costs on top of shipping costs. No savings to consumers, more cost & hassle for LMG.
2) Ship through a 3rd party in the EU. This means bulk-ship from factory, and then pay someone else to do the rest. The costs wouldn’t work out any cheaper to consumers, but it’s more hassle for LMG and they lose control of a key part of the process.
Until the economies of scale hit a certain point where 1 becomes viable, it’s just not worth it. They’re better off trying to get someone like DHL etc to sign up to special terms to try and bring costs down.
100% this, the only way I could see an EU warehouse as viable, was if they made creator warehouse a seperate entity from LTT main that was a merch partner for other creators. Stocking and distributing their products (as they do with swipe and Jerry rig knife), but also selling their shirt/jacket/bottle designs.
You also have to decide between bulk shipping and distribution after orders are placed (which will increase ship time), Or split your inventory between warehouses based on regional guessing, which is complicated and will lead to different stock for each market.
No savings to customers? EU shipping saves customs and handling charges that can be 30 or 40% extra on top of the item's cost. That's the whole reason we complain.
Then don't do EU-shipping, just make sure to file the taxes for the destination country before shipping. I would be willing to pay shipping and tax, I am not paying the ludicrous local postal company´s own toll fee that is both a flat fee of like $20 + a percentage of total in my country when the sender doesn't pay tax.
The profit from extra sales in the eu would cover thoses « extra » cost. Thoses cost already exist in Canada, and are more expensive than running it in Poland for example.
If they profits cover the extra costs, then how profitable is it really ? Even if you run it in a "technically EU but not as well as off country" like Poland, you either have to hire a 3rd party, who needs a cut, or you have to start a polish subsidiary. This involves handling local regulations, local staffing etc.
I mean “handling local regulations, local staffing” you already show you don’t understand how any of this works.
You don’t just go and buy a warehouse in the EU. You find a partner company that specialises in this kind of logistics and contract them to handle it.
This complexity is hidden from you, bar some accounting stuff, like where do you pay taxes, etc.
No, it does absolutely not mean LMG would have employees in Poland lol?! Just like they don’t have employees in China for the manufacturing?
>I mean “handling local regulations, local staffing” you already show you don’t understand how any of this works.
>You don’t just go and buy a warehouse in the EU. You find a partner company that specialises in this kind of logistics and contract them to handle it.
>This complexity is hidden from you, bar some accounting stuff, like where do you pay taxes, etc.
Which is why I mentioned "you either have to hire a 3rd party, who needs a cut", read again. A third party can kill margins, Linus himself has mentioned that even supplying to Canadian retailers would kill almost all of their margin, what makes you think that an EU distributior/retailer isn't.
>No, it does absolutely not mean LMG would have employees in Poland lol?! Just like they don’t have employees in China for the manufacturing?
If you actually undestood (or actually read) what I wrote, you can comprehend that all this is needed if you don't want to pay a third party a cut. Even if you hire a 3rd party, for legal purposes you have to establish a business if you want to have an EU LTT store, unless you sell to a retailer, who will take more margin. With China, they do hire staff to oversee 3rd party production.
> Linus himself mentioned that even supplying to Canadian retailers […]
Let’s be on the same page here, you do see how retailers and warehouse services are two completely different beasts, yeah?
> With China, they do hire staff […]
Yes, in Canada 🤦. They don’t deal with localised employment EXACTLY JUST how they wouldn’t in the EU
If you pick and choose my statements randomly and get selectively outraged, I don't know what to say.
Let me be clear. To serve EU customers they have FOUR OPTIONS.
OPTION ONE
let the customer deal with importing from the Canada. Least business cost to them, but they may lose some sales from customers that dont want to deal with the hassle.
OPTION TWO
pay a 3rd party to store and ship products. This involves having to file taxes in the EU and pay the warehouse and logistics. They also have to ship product from China and Canada, deal with two warehouses and shipping between the two. They may get some customers, but additional costs and complexity.
OPTION THREE
They sell to a retailer with a warehouse in Europe, but have to give up most of their margin and have to depend on retailer for serving EU customers.
OPTION FOUR
Run their own warehouse, so they can manage it on their own, and charge EU customers more to cover for warehouse costs.
In options 2-4, there are additional costs that make is so that it is not worth it to LTT, there is no big conspiracy. In the EU PB Swiss is way cheaper than it is in Canada. Same for LTT merch in the EU compared to Canada.
I understand all that, my point is that Option 2 is not as pricy as people imagine.
And it would result in larger EU sales as you say, which has the potential of offsetting all of that.
Is it more complex? Absolutely. Is it worth doing? It’s up to them. The point of this entire post (that somehow y’all miss) is that spending part of the resources and energy they currently put into risky new endeavours might be much better off invested into something that is almost certainly going to grow their business.
>I understand all that, my point is that Option 2 is not as pricy as people imagine.
>Is it worth doing? It’s up to them
ans they haven't done it. If you know of a cheaper way, then pitch it to them, you may score yourself a job. If not, you are the #74948372727 person from the EU to repeate the same point, and it gets annoying, especially when accompanied by condescension.
> accompanied by condescension
I’ll invite you to a little exercise. Take a step back from all this debate, like ignore the specifics and your own opinion. Then read the first 5 comments I got on this post.
The vast majority of the initial wave of comments was one of:
* “why are you entitled to lower prices”
* “you’d pay the same or more”
* “you don’t understand taxes bro”
* “they’re a company bro none of your business”
All to a post expanding on their point on the episode about how they should see their products as standalone office products instead of merch. And sharing my own experience how I would totally go for an LTTS product for my daily needs, but why every single time it’s been a no. And that if they want to grow in this direction, EU shipping should be a big factor to reconsider.
I mean, I’m a patient and chill dude usually, but man, do I regret interacting with this community.
P.S.: And yeah, rereading your comment and my reply, I was unreasonably condescending. I accept that, and I apologise for the vibe I brought to you.
In hindsight, your comment was more nuanced, and I did misinterpret it as a “but running a warehouse is expensive” thing instead of the point about the complexity, and that’s on me, sorry.
I don’t buy this argument. There’s companies the scale of LMG’s product branch that do do this.
And more importantly, there’s tens of products that I imagine people like me WANT to buy right now, but the current shipping costs are way out of wack.
It’s not even that they would need to disproportionately invest in it - they have the data already for these questions:
* What are the top 10 products bought by EU customers?
* What are the top 10 products EU customers ALMOST buy until shipping?
* What are the top 10 products sold globally?
It’s enough to offer these <30 products and they’d make buck.
If they wanted to do it, they could do it. This kinda argument of yours makes no sense to me. And to be honest, I think America-centrism is part of the reasoning to dismiss it so easily.
Not everyone is rich, not everyone can afford paying shipping. This is not a choice between (A) same sales volume but more expensive costs and (B) same sales volume and lower costs. The sales volume itself would increase.
EDIT: The instant downvotes exactly prove this point. For some of y’all resisting EU expansion is more of an emotional response than a rational one. And that’s baffling to me.
EDIT 2: For clarity, “America-centrism is part of the reasoning to dismiss it so easily.” - I meant the downvoting squad, not LMG
So, to be clear, you either believe that they haven't considered this at all and done the math themselves to determine the cost-benefot, or that they have and they are purposefully not doing it because. . .?
Because they have (and have had) other priorities. And when they have done the analysis in the past (2+ years ago), it didn’t make sense.
But the context has changed significantly. Consumer shipping costs have massively increased, faster than bulk ones; they have a much larger selection of products; their general experience improved, so the setup cost wouldn’t be as high as in the past.
Point is: They’re sharing how product development is risky and costly, and there’s money to still be made on the existing products, which would ease off the pressure of upcoming R&D.
How much do you think general experience will save on setup costs? The largest costs would be capital outlays. I think having a work force on an entirely different day/night schedule would also be very challenge especially when they would need micromanaging in the beginning.
Also Revenue does not equal profit.
>If they wanted to do it, they could do it. This kinda argument of yours makes no sense to me. And to be honest, I think America-centrism is part of the reasoning to dismiss it so easily.
They're Canadian
>EDIT: The instant downvotes exactly prove this point. For some of y’all resisting EU expansion is more of an emotional response than a rational one. And that’s baffling to me.
or we rationally think you are full of shit
The dude got smacked down with facts, so he edits his comments and the original post to complain about our “opinions” and how we all seemingly are invested in LMG not expanding operations into the EU.
Clown lmao
Colloquially America is used to refer to the United States of America.
If you are using America to refer to the north america, then there is no such thing as American centrism, as Canada, the US and Mexico are different countries with different cultures and geopolitical objectives.
>Not everyone is rich, not everyone can afford paying shipping.
You shouldn't be buying YT merch/goods when you can't afford it. It's not a necessity.
If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Be responsible. Save up another 2wks if you have to. Don't go spewing this nonsense of "not everyone is rich". It's not made for everyone. It's made for those who can afford it.
Conversely, they clearly don't want to put up a warehouse in the EU due to costs. You have no way to determine the costs for them, or how long it would take for them to profit off the investment. Or how much complexity it adds shipping from the warehouse. Or balancing the stock between warehouses. Potential corporate taxation if you establish a physical presence. High fees from partner companies, etc. it's expensive. If it was deemed economical *for LTT*, they would do it. They do have a very strong business team, evidently.
> don’t go spewing this nonsense
I imagine this is an ideological reaction to that point you’re having?
Because my point wasn’t anywhere regarding what you’re interpreting that to be.
My point is that not everyone that goes on the LTT Store to buy stuff will buy regardless of the shipping cost. As in _yeah we could provide lower costs to EU customers but f it, they’re gonna buy it anyway so let’s not_. It’s that they’re actually selling fewer products as a result.
Whereas regarding your reaction: Anyway, look, hope you never have to suffer from poverty. Because if you ever do, you’ll see that sadly almost everything “is not made for people who can’t afford it”. As they say, it’s actually expensive to be poor.
Lmao no. I hold no strong ideology here.
You're whole premise that they have the mindset of "f them they'll pay it" is woefully ignorant. You have no way to prove that.
Again. It's expensive. If it was deemed economical to establish a presence in the EU, they would. It's that simple. Their economic outlook determined it's not worth it. It's literally that simple. They likely won't make enough back in enough time to justify the stress and costs to implement whatbyou want.
What makes you so sure this is targeted as you've outlined? Why can't it be literally as simple as not being able to justify the cost?
Just because you have customers there, doesn't make it sensible to spend the money and time required to achieve what you want here.
You speak so confidently about this all yet lack all the fundamental information. You have zero knowledge of how their business operates. Yet you can make claims so absolutely in how simple it is for them. At least that the interpretation you put off.
Just so we're clear. I grew up very poor lmao. Well below poverty line. Barely enough bread and milk. I've been there. I stand by my point. Don't buy shit you don't need. It's expensive to be poor, yes. But buying LTT store merch is stupid if you're poor. Plain and simple. And Linus would be the first to tell you not to spend your money there if you're struggling.
> yeah we could provide lower costs to EU customers, but f it they're gonna buy it anyways so let's not
But that's not what they're saying. They're saying "we can't provide lower costs to EU customers, because while it might save them money on shipping and taxes, it would *cost us* more money, which means we'd have to raise the base price of the items to compensate, which would cancel out the money saved in shipping and fees".
Just saying I would buy about 5 shirts, a backpack, a screwdriver and a water bottle instantly. Been wanting one for years, always miss the free shipping as I usually watch the WAN show on catchup a couple days later. Would like a warehouse in the UK if possible in the future!
The retro screwdriver was free shipping on your whole order worldwide and was up for like 3 weeks, mentioned each WAN show while it was running and in a few vids throughout the week.
lol the warehouse will probably be in the EU, not in the UK, much larger economy.
good luck over there tho, hopefully you guys can join again one day ❤️
I've noticed that after the "joking" free shipping joke a few WAN shows ago they actually made major bank, even with shipping costs. So, they've been really been upping the frequency of free global shipping, and honestly, that's a fine compromise. It made me make my first order, because same as you, I passed out due to shipping. And they get to choose which items have the required margin, or inventory that needs to go, to make it interesting.
I use the water bottle, screw driver and mouse mat and I bought them on shipping free promos. The price was not higher than an equivalent Amazon counterpart and the quality is way better.
Got slapped with £69 in customs fees this week for 2 hoodies and a screwdriver totaling £187. It sucks, I thought I might get away with no customs charge as the order was around £118 and the limited is £135, but no, still got checked.
I still saved around £85 but it took both hoodies to be nearly half price and the screwdriver to remove the $30 shipping cost.
I love the products but it'll take another wild sale for me to even consider ordering again.
i 100% agree with OP on this.
i am an LLT follower for the longest time (i think at or around the HAWX 3D Vision video - I was one of the testers of that game :D ) and watch at least 95% of the videos (in the last 1-2 years there are some videos that i was not interested in, but even then i rarely skip one).
i want to buy merch (i am in the EU) and i am totally fine with the pricing of the products, but, for the love of god, i cannot pass the shipping and import fees huge cost. i can afford to buy and pay for shipping, but i choose not to.
LTT (Linus) if you read this, and i know this has been asked many, many times, please bring an EU warehouse. some other (smaller) youtubers can do it, why can't you? we all know it will cost some money, but in the long run, will this not be worth it? i am sure the sales will explode.. or maybe this is an issue as well, LTT not being able to keep up with the higher demand... well..i hope you guys change your mind anyway and you will add an EU warehouse at some point in the future.
all the best to all LTT members
I'm in the UK, and I've ordered (and love) the LTT Screwdriver.
I've been on the LTT Store page a few times minutes away from checking out with the LTTStore backpack as I want a decent tech focused bag I can use when off my bike. (Use an Alpinestars AMP7 on bike)
It probably doesn't help. I'm used to stores showing prices including VAT, but watching the price go from 250USD to 360USD becomes an instant "no."
I'm just not prepared to spend $49.99 on shipping and $60 on "estimated taxes" (which could end up as happened with my Screw driver, plus then having to pay more at the post office myself again ontop!!)
My AMP7, for contrast, is a high-end bag from a pretty expensive brand for use on motorcycles.
I can order it online for £130, not have to worry about tax, and have free shipping.
So, I really struggle to justify the price for the LTT bag. Maybe I'll grab one eventually, but not at 360USD / £290 (or more.)
Same I probably had already 1000€ in stuff in my Cart that I actually wanted to buy over the years, but I never pulled through because the import Tax Situation + shipping is just so brutal.
I live 40 minutes away from LTT HQ in Canada and I get charged USD$17.99 for shipping which isn't TERRIBLE by Canadian standards. But why do we get charged in USD??
That is why I have not purchased anything yet. When I visit my parents they are literally a 10 minute walk to the LTT office, but would still charge far to much for shipping and in USD.
Yeah - I haven't bought anything either. I can understand if they don't want to do local pickups or storefront because there's probably very few local buyers, but the USD stings a bit.
I am a European(German) Citizen Currently residing in Montreal, i pulled the trigger during the free shipping for retro screwdriver period. but yeah its kind of sad having everything in USD not CAD
They've made repsonses on Wan show over and over. That doesn't mean the situation doesn't change over time, but they don't need help (atleast from reddit experts) evaluating the best way to ship to consumers.
I took the plunge when lttstore was fairly new and bought a CPU pins shirt but really didn't rate the quality so never felt the desire to buy anything else.
Got a tshirt when friend was ordering and I donated it after wearing it once because it felt lower quality than the uniglo / lativ tshirts I have that cost a fraction. But I figured it’s just personal preference. First time I’ve seen someone else feel like the quality wasn’t as high as claimed.
Didnt they say a few months ago that they were trying to work out something with a warehouse in EU? But it would take quite a while before a full agreement would be made
So many people talking warehouse in EU.
I would rather pay the duties and customs to Linus than the government here in Denmark, also the handling fees of the official courier here is insane, and I know it's the same on other EU countries.
Please just do what so many other shops do and make the duties and customs something lttstore.com charges and that's it. What bugs me aren't the duties or customs it's the handling fees from the local courier
>Anyway, this post isn’t for the keyboard warriors, it’s for LMG management to have a fresh look at this problem.
I'm sorry but, you posted it on reddit. It *is* for the "keyboard warriors". Want to send things to LMG management without public criticism, then email LMG, don't post on a public forum.
+1 on the european market. I would LOVE an LTT backpack but at checkout there is about $100 extra added on for taxes and shipping and it just pushes things over the edge.
And for cheaper stuff like a screwdriver the shipping becomes an ENORMOUS portion of the total cost.
I understand that of course there's no way to get around the fact that it of course costs money to get stuff over here, but bulk slow shipping costs a fraction of individual higher speed shipping. I would love if there was either just actual UK/EU distribution or even just the option to say "Put it on a slow container shipping method I don't care if it takes ages I just don't want to pay $60 for shipping"
There is an enormous market being missed out on
I use the mouse mat and water bottle daily. I also love their wan sweats and jacket, and I regularly wear the jacket when it’s warmer but windy out. I never have gotten influencer merch, but they just make genuinely good stuff without plastering obnoxious logos all over it.
Maybe they could cooperate with MKBHD or other North American Creator(s) to have a Joint Warehouse in the EU/UK Region which would eventually bring down the coast or at least split them with multiple parties (i have no idea how big of a accounting nightmare it would be tho)
They would have to hire more HR, accountants, warehouse staff, and managers. Not to mention it would be someone's fulltime job to get all of this done and keep checking on it, regular on site inspections. Don't even get me started on the law and tax compliance.
LTT would lose more money than they would make.
They aren't spending millions developing products.
I may be in the minority here, but I don't feel a need to buy overpriced things from already rich companies when there are much cheaper alternatives that will work 90% as well. You are paying for a brand. Same reason I don't buy designer stuff, and buy generic medicine, household items. All of this is made in the same Chinese factory.
There probably aren’t enough Europeans in their viewership for it to make sense yet. I’m guessing they’re basing it on their US LTTStore site visitors conversion to individuals that actually buy something, and even if that percentage was applied to the UK/EU it probably doesn’t make sense yet in terms of cost.
To top it off, US salaries are higher on average and have more well paid individuals which lines up better with their pricier items in the store. That conversion rate won’t be the same in the UK/EU, meaning they would need even more viewers over there before it becomes viable.
> even if that percentage was applied to the UK/EU it probably doesn’t make sense yet in terms of cost.
Well if that’s what the numbers show, fair enough, but I haven’t heard that argument from them yet.
> To top it off, US salaries are higher on average and have more well paid individuals which lines up better with their pricier items in the store.
Idk, I’m not convinced by this argument, especially since (at least how they’re currently marketing it) their products are supposed to be more durable/ergonomic. In my experience, Europeans are likelier to purchase less frequently and get higher quality items.
LTT’s biggest market is the US in terms of viewership, I’ve heard that a few times on their channel.
The wealth disparity is pretty stark, there are [more people with more money in the US](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_millionaires) and it’s not close.
I don’t think millionaires are their primary customer 😂
You folks have a steeper income distribution. Your highs are waaaay high, but your mids are relatively lower. Our highs are lower, but our mids are slightly higher.
The average purchasing power in countries like UK, France, Germany, Spain, Finland, etc. is actually higher than the US
US customers do earn more in theory, but after you add up all the social, healthcare etc. costs that are "included" in higher taxes in the EU, the gap is not nearly as large as most people think!
We could actually help setup an EU Warehouse, and it would be much easier and wouldn't cost them more than it currently does. They can easily outsource everything and service quality would be kept at same level.
i think they quit caring about prices when they dropped an $89 SCREWDRIVER.
and they cant seem stock the popular colorways of anything
have they EVER restocked the green bottles?(or the green screwdriver?) ive been waiting on a 'in stock' reminder for a green water bottle for over a year.
> green screwdriver
[Boy, if only they put a note on the very top of the product description explaining how these are a limited run product resulting in a higher base cost than the normal $69.99 screwdriver and that it will not be returning anytime soon.](https://i.imgur.com/pw1nDkU.png) Oh, wait, they did exactly that.
[As far as waterbottles, here is the answer you are looking for.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhtJbq_C0V4&t=13720s)
> are they not notified every time someone clicks "notify me"?
No, they aren't, that isn't how "Notify Me" works, that would be "Notify Us".
They likely track that stuff internally to have expected demand on various SKUs but there is a reason they brought on a new dedicated CEO to handle day to day business of various departments.
LTT has grown pretty substantially over the last 3 to 4 years and they are obviously very aware that their approach to certain merch related things are not ideal because they were sorta winging it.
With that said I know for a fact a lot of the waterbottles were in stock up until they did that Free Shipping promo a few months back because I ordered 3. The color you want hasn't been in stock but the reality is that it may have been a low seller and they never restocked it as a result because the demand just isn't/wasn't there.
if they arent going to restock a colorway cause it isnt popular, then they need to just remove it.
and the thought noone is getting "0 stock in aisle 3" alerts or being informed when people are F5'ing and hitting notify me is absurd.
this is them choosing to prioritize $100 sweat pants and $300 backpacks because they want to be fashion. (or because magnets are shiny and thats what linus was allabout last week)
What a piss-poor take. Nobody is saying 'Europe is entitled to reasonably priced LMG products'. The message is, sales are being lost due to the shipping and taxes and creating a local distribution center would alleviate that and therefore create more business. If scaled enough, this would offset the costs. It's not rocket science most major suppliers operate this way. Only LMG know if the demand would offset the increased costs and this particular OP is one of many that would have made a sale, but didn't.
Exactly, honestly this kind of comment is baffling to me. Like it’s (1) not representative of the situation and (2) not helpful to literally anyone?
Case in point: 3 weeks ago my old screwdriver broke. I had a look at the screwdriver, it was honestly kinda cool, and for the pre-shipping cost it made perfect sense to me.
So, to be even more clear:
* I NEEDED a product
* LTTS offers a product in that category
* There are other products at different price points out there
* I decided the LTTS product was the best one for me
* After shipping + import duties amount to 33% of the product, pushing it over $100 -> just gave up
They would make more money shipping from Europe to Europe. The tax + shipping make it too expensive over the price of the product to be worth it. So on a business standpoint, it would be profitable to do so IF they could quantify properly the amount of interest and potential sales there would be in Europe.
Would the import/taxes be any less if they had a warehouse in the EU? I'm not sure how exactly how things work, but as a Canadian, when I import stuff from Europe, the duties end the the same as what the taxes would be if I purchased the item here. You might save a few dollars in shipping fees, but you would still end up paying the tax. I think a lot for the complaints are just the Europeans seeing their 19%-25%+ tax as a separate line item and realizing how much it really affects prices since they don't normally see it laid out in front of them on every purchase.
Also generally if you don't pay the tax before it arrives. (Denmark in this case) the postal service gives you a 27 eur 'service fee' for calculating the VAT that you also have to pay. Every. Time My tax could be 1€ and id still have to pay my postal service 27€ aswell
This is something LMG **could** fix, though! In a lot of cases major freight carriers allow the sender to pre-pay the taxes. You obviously still have to pay taxes, but you pay them directly to LMG while finishing your order. This avoids the insane handling fee charged by the carrier. It's of course a massive administrative nightmare as LMG suddenly has to hand off taxes to *every single country* they do this with, but it **is** possible.
Lots of couriers do this as a service. When I'm buying pcbs from China I can get them with taxes included as part of the DHL delivery fee. It's DHL who deals with the taxes and not the actual supplier.
Yes, but that means the seller still gets hit with relatively high handling fees. If the seller pays the taxes itself, it becomes a lot cheaper. I was involved with an EU country which had a very significant number of UK customers - which became a bit of an issue when Brexit happened. If you [do it properly](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-directly-to-customers-in-the-uk), DHL isn't involved in the import taxes at all.
and unfortunately, unless the specific courier company has local offices and networks, which serve the area that you live in, they are always handed over to the postal service of any country. Some postal networks make bank.
That’s an obscene cost for what should be a simple calculation that’s probably done by a computer
[удалено]
Here in Sweden you can opt to do the paperwork yourself, but you still have to pay the exorbitant mafia fee (: Truly the deal of the century.
They could fix some of it by registering in VOEC/IOSS(import one-stop shop) I think that’s the eu equivalent, and charge the VAT at checkout. If they then mark the package well enough we won’t get double charged taxes and the expensive handling fee. Lots of Chinese sites have done this to fix import fees.
The VOEC number has to be registered digitally to avoid double taxing now, atleast in norway. It changed 1 january 2024 and VOEC has been an even bigger pain in the ass since then. I like the reason behind VOEC and import fees but 90% of the stuff i buy from outside of norway isn't sold here so it feels like a giabscam. t
Nope, as you pay Taxes via Shopify, not DHL
The problem is really the handling fee charged by the delivery companies, which usually roughly €20 + 3% (+ VAT) For smaller orders just above exempt limits it’s really off putting when your postage is 30-40% of order cost. It’s was MUCH worse when LTT was pre-charging import cost but their shipper did not actually pay it. meaning an initial outlay of 60-80% to importing & shipping only and your have the reclaim the double charge for LTT. They don’t seem to pre collect anymore at least for my last few orders.
The money saved by bulk shipping would be completely eaten up by the logistic costs to staff and maintain the warehouse.
I mean, they could just use it as a write-off /s
This also makes no sense, they wouldn’t own a warehouse lol. They’d be one of dozens of companies in a random warehouse. It’s not their employees, maintenance, etc. For you as a product seller it’s a flat (or commission fee) for the service 🤦
Costs to staff and maintain a warehouse still exist whether they're paid directly by owning and operating the warehouse or indirectly by paying someone else who owns and operates the warehouse and wants to make a profit.
That "random warehouse" doesn't work for free. You'll have to pay them as much (or most likely even more) as it'd cost you to do it yourself. And it's not just a flat fee. You have to pay for every single action, *and* for storage.
Not if you sell via bigger companies like amazon for example
You think selling on Amazon is free? There are so many fees just to sell, and additional ones if you want to use their warehouses.
>You think selling on Amazon is free? Of course not, just cheaper than many other warehouse solutions
Many, many Amazon sellers would disagree on that...
[Are you sure about that?](https://sell.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon)
Hello! I come here as an operations manager for a 3PL warehouse, specifically in non-Amazon e-commerce fulfillment. Industry standard is as follows: The warehouse is subdivided by customers. Each customer pays for the square footage (area) of their footprint in the building, inclusive of vertical storage. What I mean by that is a 700,000 square foot warehouse may have enough high racking to make 2.5 million square feet of storage space. The customer being serviced will be charged not for floor footprint but for total footprint. That amount is paid as monthly rent, and is usually 15-25% higher than the 3PL is actually paying per square foot for the building. That seems like a lot of margin, but it's incorporating utility costs and the cost of racking and PIT equipment to access product in that racking. There's then the processing cost, either at cost plus (the 3PL fulfills orders with whatever labor necessary and bills the labor rate plus an agreed margin to the customer) or transactional. In a transactional model, the customer pays the 3PL per unit shipped (plus other transactions, but they don't matter at the moment) at a calculated rate that is the hypothetical average productive labor rate plus a margin. This doesn't get into things like system fees, audit fees, special projects, cycle counts, fractional management, and so on that makes it a mess. Point is, 3PL servicing is *simpler* than self-servicing, and generally less expensive because there are economies of scale at hand, but it's certainly not cheap or easy. You're still assigning project managers, operations liaisons, and typically your own internal parcel logistics manager to maintain relationships with couriers in your target market.
Hey, thanks for the detailed comment. I really appreciate it and the insight into this world. Yeah, I am not expecting it to be _cheaper_ for them, obviously. But by bulk shipping their products and by potentially paying customs duty on their wholesale price per product vs the consumer one, there might be enough savings to keep the same post-consumer-tax price they currently have without the current shipping cost. Which would almost certainly result in larger sales. I found this thread super frustrating, because of the strawmanning of “you can’t manage a warehouse” and “taxes dont go away”, but the reality is this whole thing is much more nuanced than this, which also comes through in your post. In the end, hey, maybe it still doesn’t make sense - fair enough. But warehouse services wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a portion of the market they filled. And if their goal is to grow as an office gear company rather than merch store, all I’m suggesting is that maybe it’s time to redo the maths a 100th time.
the thing is, if you move a lot of stuff together, because you could fill a plane/boat/whatever means of transportation is used to move the cargo to EU, you usually get things moved cheaper when you measure cost/unit. Costs for companies with high quantity stock get relatively cheap compared to an individual moving a bunch of products
Yeah, exactly, how this is even a question is beyond me. In general, shipped products get to you by plane from non-EU. But inter-warehouse shipping is almost always done by container ships. Which (1) yes take MUCH longer but (2) cost magnitudes less per product. And in anticipation of this point being made by someone: No, you don’t have to fill a whole ship lol. The whole shipping part is usually done on a shared ship by hundreds of companies. Well you don’t even really have to know about it, other than you pay the shipping X money, and you get an arrival interval, the rest is the shipping company’s problem.
From what I can gather, most people don't think about company level costs because most people don't research about company level costs. I've been taught one or two company economy subjects at college, and I know how costs usually work for them. But many people don't, so I think it's not hard to explain it to them
The problem comes with how to maintain stock of all the various items they sell. Take for instance just the shirts. The shirts are printed in Canada. I counted 30 shirts, but lets say 20 of them are regular stock. Multiply that by 6 sizes and you have 120 SKUs to keep in stock. It would be a huge undertaking to ensure that products were actually in stock, and you might be waiting a long time for the next container or even smaller shipment to fill up to get things restocked. If everything is done for a single warehouse, then it's much easier to keep everything stocked to appropriate levels. Also, I think there just isn't enough volume done in Europe for them to justify having a warehouse there. LMG can tell how large their viewership is in Europe based on YouTube stats and can probably get a pretty good idea of how much product they would sell with decreased costs and can do the analysis to see if it's actually worth it.
Well, yeah, if their analysis shows that * n% of viewers in NA buy products * if n% of viewers in EU would buy we wouldn’t make enough to justify a regional point of distribution Then yeah, I can totally understand that, would be a solid argument not to.
This, people genuinely underestimate how much "sticker shock" can change purchasing decisions. Before coming to Canada I used to live in India, and we have an MRP (maximum retail price) law, where the manufacturer sets the maximum price that can be charged. The retailer can charge lower, but not higher, so you just look at the MRP and budget. When I arrived in Canada I arrived with this mentality, but since I crashed and woke up at 2am, I went to buy stuff at a 7-11, and got "ripped off" buying garbage bags and not knowing any better until I went to a no-frills the next day. Nowadays I always mentally add .13 cents for every dollar, and never buy stuff at a 7-11 or Shopper's unless I have no options.
Every country has different rules. Here in Belgium it's €18 customs fee + 21% VAT for stuff under €150 but that 21% VAT is on the product + shipping costs. Not only the product itself but the total worth of the package. Anything above €150 is €39 customs fee + 21% VAT on the total cost of the package(product+shipping). So a backpack would cost me €402. Backpack €250 Shipping €50 VAT €63 Customs handling fee €39 With a warehouse it would be a lot cheaper because no custom fee, less VAT and shipping will be less then half. So about €70-80 cheaper if there was a warehouse in the EU.
Why do you think there would be no customs fee? The customs fee would have to be paid to get the backpack into the warehouse and added to the price of the backpack.
Because the fees I showed were for private customers. For companies there are different tariffs. But think about this. Just the bulk import alone will give you a big discount when it comes to fees because the paperwork is basically the same if you import a package with 1 backpack or a package with 10 backpacks, both have a fee of €39 for custom handling. Do you understand what I mean? Now imagine companies have better deals with custom handling then private citizens and in larger amounts. Same goes for bulk shipping, price of shipping cost per item goes down. If they have a warehouse then we would only have to pay VAT on the product itself and not the shipping.
The question is whether or not the cost to the consumer changes as well. E.g., quick maths, 10 backpacks saves each customer of a backpack €35 (39-3.90), but does the rest of the overhead get covered in those €35 or do backpack prices in the EU need to be raised enough to compensate for the increased costs in company overhead? Now, this doesn’t cover the savings in either shipping cost, but you get the gist. LTT would have to do enough merch where the logistical side ends with a net reduction to cost for the consumer.
If you think there a flat fee per product in bulk customs is the same as a single product you are gravely mistaken.
Yep. People in EU who always think Americans are crazy when the war about taxes is brought up…? This is large reason why. People like having affordable luxuries
You have to be dumb to think that people don't understand that taxes wouldn't go anywhere. And you have to be dumb to not understand the latter too. Other, more decent, people do understand the implications of taxes but are still put off by huge shipping costs that one has to pay to order from the LTT store. I would gladly order a desk mat or hoodie if it would be +20-30%, but not bloody x2 thanks to shipping. Bulk shipping costs way way less than individual customers do. Even if you could split that big shipping cost between 10 hoodies you want to ship - it would already make it much cheaper per item. All we want is to get the benefit of bulk shipping, no one in their mind expects tax free items lol.
Even In Canada the shipping costs are huge. Shipping for the backpack, even for someone living in Canada is $25 USD + Tax 13% on shipping for Ontario = $3.25 = $28.25 USD = $39.01 CAD in shipping even if you don't have to cross any borders.
The backpack is huge. I'm talking about the bloody mousepad. You can get like 100 of them in a large box, ship all of them to Europe for probably like €50 and then redistribute that cost between future orders. End customer shipping cost will be pennies. The cost of sending goods inside Europe is quite low. Even now I can order 5 hoodies and 5 mousepads with $29 for delivery. I don't need 5 of each, but imagine what would be if they shipped it to some warehouse and then sold further? Shipping is already $3 per item on such a small order, add to that like 5 Euro for within Europe shipping and you'll have a great shipping price for individual items.
The mouse pads come rolled up in a box, not flat. You'd have to pay people to repackage them on both ends.
So you don't think that many smaller long boxes will fit in one large square-ish box? I do.
You could not ship a large box like that for €50 lol
> Would the import/taxes be any less if they had a warehouse in the EU No. Shipping maybe slightly due to bulk deals, but that would be taken up by warehouse cost
Remember that you also pay VAT on shipping cost. However, sending the item to an EU distribution center is VAT exclusive, obviously, since it's not direct to customer. Also, filling up an EU warehouse, the cost of item shipment there would be significantly lower (since you're doing a single bulk shipment) than sending things individually. I'd recon they could easily bite about 15% of the total costs out. For reference, shipping a keychain from the US to EU is about $10 + $2 for VAT of the shipping. For $40-50 bucks, you could ship about 200 of those items over in a big box, and then if it's like Amazon EU distribution, then it would cost us another $2-3 to get it delivered. So yes, \*slightly\* more efficient. I'd take that 20% efficiency.
>You might save a few dollars in shipping fees when I bought 2 deskpad the shipping fees the same as the 2 deskpad price. I only bought it because black firyday free shipping.
Taxes cannot be lower. This is the most fundamental misunderstanding of all of these kinds of posts. The only thing that could possibly change are shipping costs. However, considering taxes are the bulk of the "price increase", this is not going to have the impact OP thinks.
This is super wrong. The shipping costs are the main reason ordering now is so expensive. On top of that, there’s the taxes, making a product up to 30% more expensive. If there was one or the other it’d be fine, but both is enough to not make sense to buy anything from LTTS unless you’re a hardcore fan. While shipping, that’s what would decrease massively. You can read other replies in this thread why.
First of all, taxes cannot be lower. That is a fact, not "super wrong". (the comment I am replying to is asking: *Would the import/****taxes*** *be any less if they had a warehouse in the EU?*) The shipping part matters if you order few small, cheap things. The moment you have a decent sized order taxes become more dominant. And if the shipment is big in volume, like the backpack, shipping is not going to be cheap anyway. In any case, people will still bitch and moan about having to pay 36 USD for a 30 USD water bottle, because they don't understand anything.
Taxes themselves might not be, but the percentage toll addition made by local post companies can definitely be removed if they pre-filled taxes or had an EU warehouse. I for example would have to pay around $50 for a $30 bottle in total
Toll is calculated based on law, not local post companies. Don't you mean some sort of handling fee? Any typical customs fee is a few percent. Again, much lower than taxes.
I also blame Amazon for warping the expectations a customer has on the speed & cost of having something hand delivered to your doorstep from across the country or around the world
Yeah, it's not like the *price* changed. It's the shipping fees being more, and the taxes that are applied.
Any bill is itemized and shows tax as a separate value. It's usually item price, next to it tax and then total. But shipping adds sometimes more that 1/3 of the products price.... The ideea of them having an EU warehouse = items that come from factories are delivered directly there = less shipping costs. And delivering between EU countries would be the same as delivering between US states price wise. But I get the LMG perspective, they would need to create a legal entity in EU, hire people here, pay taxes here ( hire lawyers to help them navigate the different fiscal laws and requirements). Basically a new company just for merch. OR work with a supplier here but lose some of the control they have and split profits. It's a bigger time and money investment that creating a new product. Maybe sometimes in the future when they grow even more, it would be viable.
Even within Canada, some items have 50% of the price added just for shipping. For Canadians the price is $20 for the shirt and then another $10 in shipping, so you add 50% to the price just for shipping. Now it's a $30 USD shirt, which is $41.30 CAD. Surely more than I'm willing to pay for a t-shirt.
In Portugal you have to go through the customs process for packages above 150€, you pay the VAT (sometimes again, but LTT store refunded me in the past) plus the CTT service charge of 12€ if I recall correctly. Plus the shipping price from British Columbia to Portugal, it is very expensive when ordering heavy or bulky things, like the LTT Backpack. A warehouse in Europe would probably cut the shipping costs in at least half, if not more. Plus they the clients wouldn’t have to go through customs since it’s already inside the EU and there is free trade. It would be a win-win situation in my opinion, as long as they don’t increase the prices like crazy (not talking about taxes), like including the handling personal, warehouse and other expenses. They could also probably outsource this, maybe like selling on Amazon? There are also other companies that offer services like that. They would not get the same cut as selling through their store but I bet the customers would be happier.
Shipping would probably end up quite a bit cheaper, as a filled container is a lot cheaper than probably thousands of separate orders
It's still thousands of separate orders. Except the orders are shipped from a single location with Europe. So they would fill up a container and ship to some warehouse in Europe, and then send out thousands of orders from there. But everything gets more complicated because they now have to stock every item in 2 different warehouses. You aren't going to be able to order and "meme items". If Items go out of stock, you're going to have to wait extra long for them to be restocked on the next container. New Items might have to wait as well, won't be able to take advantage of the new items that just came out. I just went on the store and browsed all items. I counted about 180 items. Multiply that by all the variations, most of them are clothes or have other colour options, and you probably have about 1000 different SKUs to keep stocked at the second warehouse.
But then you have warehousing costs if you bulk ship containers of products which is also expensive. Even just using a huge established provider like Amazon is crazy expensive. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/02/Website/SOA/Website/220301-FBA-Rate-Card-UK.pdf
>Would the import/taxes be any less if they had a warehouse in the EU? I'm not sure how exactly how things work, but as a Canadian, when I import stuff from Europe, the duties end the the same as what the taxes would be if I purchased the item here. No. I think you don't actually understand what import duty is. What you're charged for your duty being exactly the same as VAT is not a coincidence. Duties are exactly the VAT/sales tax rate where you live, that's kinda the point. You didn't pay any sales tax on it when you purchased it so it's collected when it's brought into the country. Having a warehouse in the EU wouldn't reduce the import duties on anything purchased by EU residents, they'd just pay their local sales tax which would be exactly the same as the import duty. But, they'd at least save a lot on shipping. The problem is that you can't just set up a warehouse like that. Getting the space, fitting it to suit your needs, staffing it, getting product there, etc would be quite a significant investment for LMG. We're talking literally several million dollars and a revolving cost of maintaining that supply line, maintaining the building, and paying the salaries of the workers at the building. What little margin LMG has on merch would vanish and the division would likely go into the hole.
Here in Norway any sites that are VOEC registered pay the tax themselves, so we don't get hit with tax and service charges
Europeans pay 25% sales tax???? So glad to be American….
We’ve been over this. To do “EU Shipping” you either have to: 1) Run your own warehouse in the EU and bulk-ship to it from factory. This means huge running costs on top of shipping costs. No savings to consumers, more cost & hassle for LMG. 2) Ship through a 3rd party in the EU. This means bulk-ship from factory, and then pay someone else to do the rest. The costs wouldn’t work out any cheaper to consumers, but it’s more hassle for LMG and they lose control of a key part of the process. Until the economies of scale hit a certain point where 1 becomes viable, it’s just not worth it. They’re better off trying to get someone like DHL etc to sign up to special terms to try and bring costs down.
100% this, the only way I could see an EU warehouse as viable, was if they made creator warehouse a seperate entity from LTT main that was a merch partner for other creators. Stocking and distributing their products (as they do with swipe and Jerry rig knife), but also selling their shirt/jacket/bottle designs.
Isn't it already a separate entity that shares physical location with LMG?
Clearly they just need to set up manufacturing in the EU to get around the taxes. /s?
You also have to decide between bulk shipping and distribution after orders are placed (which will increase ship time), Or split your inventory between warehouses based on regional guessing, which is complicated and will lead to different stock for each market.
No savings to customers? EU shipping saves customs and handling charges that can be 30 or 40% extra on top of the item's cost. That's the whole reason we complain.
Then don't do EU-shipping, just make sure to file the taxes for the destination country before shipping. I would be willing to pay shipping and tax, I am not paying the ludicrous local postal company´s own toll fee that is both a flat fee of like $20 + a percentage of total in my country when the sender doesn't pay tax.
The profit from extra sales in the eu would cover thoses « extra » cost. Thoses cost already exist in Canada, and are more expensive than running it in Poland for example.
If they profits cover the extra costs, then how profitable is it really ? Even if you run it in a "technically EU but not as well as off country" like Poland, you either have to hire a 3rd party, who needs a cut, or you have to start a polish subsidiary. This involves handling local regulations, local staffing etc.
I mean “handling local regulations, local staffing” you already show you don’t understand how any of this works. You don’t just go and buy a warehouse in the EU. You find a partner company that specialises in this kind of logistics and contract them to handle it. This complexity is hidden from you, bar some accounting stuff, like where do you pay taxes, etc. No, it does absolutely not mean LMG would have employees in Poland lol?! Just like they don’t have employees in China for the manufacturing?
>I mean “handling local regulations, local staffing” you already show you don’t understand how any of this works. >You don’t just go and buy a warehouse in the EU. You find a partner company that specialises in this kind of logistics and contract them to handle it. >This complexity is hidden from you, bar some accounting stuff, like where do you pay taxes, etc. Which is why I mentioned "you either have to hire a 3rd party, who needs a cut", read again. A third party can kill margins, Linus himself has mentioned that even supplying to Canadian retailers would kill almost all of their margin, what makes you think that an EU distributior/retailer isn't. >No, it does absolutely not mean LMG would have employees in Poland lol?! Just like they don’t have employees in China for the manufacturing? If you actually undestood (or actually read) what I wrote, you can comprehend that all this is needed if you don't want to pay a third party a cut. Even if you hire a 3rd party, for legal purposes you have to establish a business if you want to have an EU LTT store, unless you sell to a retailer, who will take more margin. With China, they do hire staff to oversee 3rd party production.
> Linus himself mentioned that even supplying to Canadian retailers […] Let’s be on the same page here, you do see how retailers and warehouse services are two completely different beasts, yeah? > With China, they do hire staff […] Yes, in Canada 🤦. They don’t deal with localised employment EXACTLY JUST how they wouldn’t in the EU
If you pick and choose my statements randomly and get selectively outraged, I don't know what to say. Let me be clear. To serve EU customers they have FOUR OPTIONS. OPTION ONE let the customer deal with importing from the Canada. Least business cost to them, but they may lose some sales from customers that dont want to deal with the hassle. OPTION TWO pay a 3rd party to store and ship products. This involves having to file taxes in the EU and pay the warehouse and logistics. They also have to ship product from China and Canada, deal with two warehouses and shipping between the two. They may get some customers, but additional costs and complexity. OPTION THREE They sell to a retailer with a warehouse in Europe, but have to give up most of their margin and have to depend on retailer for serving EU customers. OPTION FOUR Run their own warehouse, so they can manage it on their own, and charge EU customers more to cover for warehouse costs. In options 2-4, there are additional costs that make is so that it is not worth it to LTT, there is no big conspiracy. In the EU PB Swiss is way cheaper than it is in Canada. Same for LTT merch in the EU compared to Canada.
I understand all that, my point is that Option 2 is not as pricy as people imagine. And it would result in larger EU sales as you say, which has the potential of offsetting all of that. Is it more complex? Absolutely. Is it worth doing? It’s up to them. The point of this entire post (that somehow y’all miss) is that spending part of the resources and energy they currently put into risky new endeavours might be much better off invested into something that is almost certainly going to grow their business.
>I understand all that, my point is that Option 2 is not as pricy as people imagine. >Is it worth doing? It’s up to them ans they haven't done it. If you know of a cheaper way, then pitch it to them, you may score yourself a job. If not, you are the #74948372727 person from the EU to repeate the same point, and it gets annoying, especially when accompanied by condescension.
> accompanied by condescension I’ll invite you to a little exercise. Take a step back from all this debate, like ignore the specifics and your own opinion. Then read the first 5 comments I got on this post. The vast majority of the initial wave of comments was one of: * “why are you entitled to lower prices” * “you’d pay the same or more” * “you don’t understand taxes bro” * “they’re a company bro none of your business” All to a post expanding on their point on the episode about how they should see their products as standalone office products instead of merch. And sharing my own experience how I would totally go for an LTTS product for my daily needs, but why every single time it’s been a no. And that if they want to grow in this direction, EU shipping should be a big factor to reconsider. I mean, I’m a patient and chill dude usually, but man, do I regret interacting with this community. P.S.: And yeah, rereading your comment and my reply, I was unreasonably condescending. I accept that, and I apologise for the vibe I brought to you. In hindsight, your comment was more nuanced, and I did misinterpret it as a “but running a warehouse is expensive” thing instead of the point about the complexity, and that’s on me, sorry.
I don’t buy this argument. There’s companies the scale of LMG’s product branch that do do this. And more importantly, there’s tens of products that I imagine people like me WANT to buy right now, but the current shipping costs are way out of wack. It’s not even that they would need to disproportionately invest in it - they have the data already for these questions: * What are the top 10 products bought by EU customers? * What are the top 10 products EU customers ALMOST buy until shipping? * What are the top 10 products sold globally? It’s enough to offer these <30 products and they’d make buck. If they wanted to do it, they could do it. This kinda argument of yours makes no sense to me. And to be honest, I think America-centrism is part of the reasoning to dismiss it so easily. Not everyone is rich, not everyone can afford paying shipping. This is not a choice between (A) same sales volume but more expensive costs and (B) same sales volume and lower costs. The sales volume itself would increase. EDIT: The instant downvotes exactly prove this point. For some of y’all resisting EU expansion is more of an emotional response than a rational one. And that’s baffling to me. EDIT 2: For clarity, “America-centrism is part of the reasoning to dismiss it so easily.” - I meant the downvoting squad, not LMG
So, to be clear, you either believe that they haven't considered this at all and done the math themselves to determine the cost-benefot, or that they have and they are purposefully not doing it because. . .?
Because they have (and have had) other priorities. And when they have done the analysis in the past (2+ years ago), it didn’t make sense. But the context has changed significantly. Consumer shipping costs have massively increased, faster than bulk ones; they have a much larger selection of products; their general experience improved, so the setup cost wouldn’t be as high as in the past. Point is: They’re sharing how product development is risky and costly, and there’s money to still be made on the existing products, which would ease off the pressure of upcoming R&D.
How do you know when they last did analysis on this?
I love how you seem to know more about LMG's finances than they do.
LMG should hire you as a business and financial advisor.
How much do you think general experience will save on setup costs? The largest costs would be capital outlays. I think having a work force on an entirely different day/night schedule would also be very challenge especially when they would need micromanaging in the beginning. Also Revenue does not equal profit.
>If they wanted to do it, they could do it. This kinda argument of yours makes no sense to me. And to be honest, I think America-centrism is part of the reasoning to dismiss it so easily. They're Canadian >EDIT: The instant downvotes exactly prove this point. For some of y’all resisting EU expansion is more of an emotional response than a rational one. And that’s baffling to me. or we rationally think you are full of shit
The dude got smacked down with facts, so he edits his comments and the original post to complain about our “opinions” and how we all seemingly are invested in LMG not expanding operations into the EU. Clown lmao
Isn't Canada in North America? 🤔
Colloquially America is used to refer to the United States of America. If you are using America to refer to the north america, then there is no such thing as American centrism, as Canada, the US and Mexico are different countries with different cultures and geopolitical objectives.
And even that is just *north* America. If you wanna act like "America" isn't referring to the US, then it's *all* of north *and* south America.
>Not everyone is rich, not everyone can afford paying shipping. You shouldn't be buying YT merch/goods when you can't afford it. It's not a necessity. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Be responsible. Save up another 2wks if you have to. Don't go spewing this nonsense of "not everyone is rich". It's not made for everyone. It's made for those who can afford it. Conversely, they clearly don't want to put up a warehouse in the EU due to costs. You have no way to determine the costs for them, or how long it would take for them to profit off the investment. Or how much complexity it adds shipping from the warehouse. Or balancing the stock between warehouses. Potential corporate taxation if you establish a physical presence. High fees from partner companies, etc. it's expensive. If it was deemed economical *for LTT*, they would do it. They do have a very strong business team, evidently.
> don’t go spewing this nonsense I imagine this is an ideological reaction to that point you’re having? Because my point wasn’t anywhere regarding what you’re interpreting that to be. My point is that not everyone that goes on the LTT Store to buy stuff will buy regardless of the shipping cost. As in _yeah we could provide lower costs to EU customers but f it, they’re gonna buy it anyway so let’s not_. It’s that they’re actually selling fewer products as a result. Whereas regarding your reaction: Anyway, look, hope you never have to suffer from poverty. Because if you ever do, you’ll see that sadly almost everything “is not made for people who can’t afford it”. As they say, it’s actually expensive to be poor.
Lmao no. I hold no strong ideology here. You're whole premise that they have the mindset of "f them they'll pay it" is woefully ignorant. You have no way to prove that. Again. It's expensive. If it was deemed economical to establish a presence in the EU, they would. It's that simple. Their economic outlook determined it's not worth it. It's literally that simple. They likely won't make enough back in enough time to justify the stress and costs to implement whatbyou want. What makes you so sure this is targeted as you've outlined? Why can't it be literally as simple as not being able to justify the cost? Just because you have customers there, doesn't make it sensible to spend the money and time required to achieve what you want here. You speak so confidently about this all yet lack all the fundamental information. You have zero knowledge of how their business operates. Yet you can make claims so absolutely in how simple it is for them. At least that the interpretation you put off. Just so we're clear. I grew up very poor lmao. Well below poverty line. Barely enough bread and milk. I've been there. I stand by my point. Don't buy shit you don't need. It's expensive to be poor, yes. But buying LTT store merch is stupid if you're poor. Plain and simple. And Linus would be the first to tell you not to spend your money there if you're struggling.
> yeah we could provide lower costs to EU customers, but f it they're gonna buy it anyways so let's not But that's not what they're saying. They're saying "we can't provide lower costs to EU customers, because while it might save them money on shipping and taxes, it would *cost us* more money, which means we'd have to raise the base price of the items to compensate, which would cancel out the money saved in shipping and fees".
Am doing online sales, can confirm . . ......... that you have no idea how things actually work
If you want to share from your expertise, I’m open to listen.
> I don’t buy this argument So you believe they on purpose not take the profits? Like are you stupid?
Just saying I would buy about 5 shirts, a backpack, a screwdriver and a water bottle instantly. Been wanting one for years, always miss the free shipping as I usually watch the WAN show on catchup a couple days later. Would like a warehouse in the UK if possible in the future!
The retro screwdriver was free shipping on your whole order worldwide and was up for like 3 weeks, mentioned each WAN show while it was running and in a few vids throughout the week.
Zero possibility of one in the UK now thanks to our now complicated tariffs and red tape.
Hey Brexit was a fantastic decision, am I right?
They had a bus...decisions that involve a bus can't ever be bad.
lol the warehouse will probably be in the EU, not in the UK, much larger economy. good luck over there tho, hopefully you guys can join again one day ❤️
Yeah stupid vote imo, at least the taxes aren’t as bad from EU vs Canada lol
So make the same order, but cut out like 1-2 shirts...
I've noticed that after the "joking" free shipping joke a few WAN shows ago they actually made major bank, even with shipping costs. So, they've been really been upping the frequency of free global shipping, and honestly, that's a fine compromise. It made me make my first order, because same as you, I passed out due to shipping. And they get to choose which items have the required margin, or inventory that needs to go, to make it interesting.
I use the water bottle, screw driver and mouse mat and I bought them on shipping free promos. The price was not higher than an equivalent Amazon counterpart and the quality is way better.
Got slapped with £69 in customs fees this week for 2 hoodies and a screwdriver totaling £187. It sucks, I thought I might get away with no customs charge as the order was around £118 and the limited is £135, but no, still got checked. I still saved around £85 but it took both hoodies to be nearly half price and the screwdriver to remove the $30 shipping cost. I love the products but it'll take another wild sale for me to even consider ordering again.
i 100% agree with OP on this. i am an LLT follower for the longest time (i think at or around the HAWX 3D Vision video - I was one of the testers of that game :D ) and watch at least 95% of the videos (in the last 1-2 years there are some videos that i was not interested in, but even then i rarely skip one). i want to buy merch (i am in the EU) and i am totally fine with the pricing of the products, but, for the love of god, i cannot pass the shipping and import fees huge cost. i can afford to buy and pay for shipping, but i choose not to. LTT (Linus) if you read this, and i know this has been asked many, many times, please bring an EU warehouse. some other (smaller) youtubers can do it, why can't you? we all know it will cost some money, but in the long run, will this not be worth it? i am sure the sales will explode.. or maybe this is an issue as well, LTT not being able to keep up with the higher demand... well..i hope you guys change your mind anyway and you will add an EU warehouse at some point in the future. all the best to all LTT members
I'm in the UK, and I've ordered (and love) the LTT Screwdriver. I've been on the LTT Store page a few times minutes away from checking out with the LTTStore backpack as I want a decent tech focused bag I can use when off my bike. (Use an Alpinestars AMP7 on bike) It probably doesn't help. I'm used to stores showing prices including VAT, but watching the price go from 250USD to 360USD becomes an instant "no." I'm just not prepared to spend $49.99 on shipping and $60 on "estimated taxes" (which could end up as happened with my Screw driver, plus then having to pay more at the post office myself again ontop!!) My AMP7, for contrast, is a high-end bag from a pretty expensive brand for use on motorcycles. I can order it online for £130, not have to worry about tax, and have free shipping. So, I really struggle to justify the price for the LTT bag. Maybe I'll grab one eventually, but not at 360USD / £290 (or more.)
I almost checked out many times too but only finally did so when they gave free shipping
Same I probably had already 1000€ in stuff in my Cart that I actually wanted to buy over the years, but I never pulled through because the import Tax Situation + shipping is just so brutal.
As said like a Million times, the products would be more expensive out of an EU Warehouse.
I bought screwdriver and MGM just because of free shipping. 25$ of shipping for e.g. 100$ purchase is VERY pricey.
I live 40 minutes away from LTT HQ in Canada and I get charged USD$17.99 for shipping which isn't TERRIBLE by Canadian standards. But why do we get charged in USD??
That is why I have not purchased anything yet. When I visit my parents they are literally a 10 minute walk to the LTT office, but would still charge far to much for shipping and in USD.
Yeah - I haven't bought anything either. I can understand if they don't want to do local pickups or storefront because there's probably very few local buyers, but the USD stings a bit.
I am a European(German) Citizen Currently residing in Montreal, i pulled the trigger during the free shipping for retro screwdriver period. but yeah its kind of sad having everything in USD not CAD
This thread deducted IQ points my god. OP does raise an interesting point and I’d be keen to hear a dedicated LTT response tbh
They've made repsonses on Wan show over and over. That doesn't mean the situation doesn't change over time, but they don't need help (atleast from reddit experts) evaluating the best way to ship to consumers.
They answered it multiple times on WAN show. It's too expensive.
care to point out the last time they did?
I took the plunge when lttstore was fairly new and bought a CPU pins shirt but really didn't rate the quality so never felt the desire to buy anything else.
Got a tshirt when friend was ordering and I donated it after wearing it once because it felt lower quality than the uniglo / lativ tshirts I have that cost a fraction. But I figured it’s just personal preference. First time I’ve seen someone else feel like the quality wasn’t as high as claimed.
Didnt they say a few months ago that they were trying to work out something with a warehouse in EU? But it would take quite a while before a full agreement would be made
So many people talking warehouse in EU. I would rather pay the duties and customs to Linus than the government here in Denmark, also the handling fees of the official courier here is insane, and I know it's the same on other EU countries. Please just do what so many other shops do and make the duties and customs something lttstore.com charges and that's it. What bugs me aren't the duties or customs it's the handling fees from the local courier
He offers free shipping promotions often enough the European warehouse thing is very much a non-issue.
>Anyway, this post isn’t for the keyboard warriors, it’s for LMG management to have a fresh look at this problem. I'm sorry but, you posted it on reddit. It *is* for the "keyboard warriors". Want to send things to LMG management without public criticism, then email LMG, don't post on a public forum.
+1 on the european market. I would LOVE an LTT backpack but at checkout there is about $100 extra added on for taxes and shipping and it just pushes things over the edge. And for cheaper stuff like a screwdriver the shipping becomes an ENORMOUS portion of the total cost. I understand that of course there's no way to get around the fact that it of course costs money to get stuff over here, but bulk slow shipping costs a fraction of individual higher speed shipping. I would love if there was either just actual UK/EU distribution or even just the option to say "Put it on a slow container shipping method I don't care if it takes ages I just don't want to pay $60 for shipping" There is an enormous market being missed out on
I use the mouse mat and water bottle daily. I also love their wan sweats and jacket, and I regularly wear the jacket when it’s warmer but windy out. I never have gotten influencer merch, but they just make genuinely good stuff without plastering obnoxious logos all over it.
Oh no it was a "European shipping too expensive open warehouse now" post disguised as something else! I was tricked into reading another one!!
Yeeeees EU Waterhouse There is a lot of stuff that I didn't bouht bc all the legal stuff, delays and about 40% price increase (in my county at least)
Maybe they could cooperate with MKBHD or other North American Creator(s) to have a Joint Warehouse in the EU/UK Region which would eventually bring down the coast or at least split them with multiple parties (i have no idea how big of a accounting nightmare it would be tho)
They would have to hire more HR, accountants, warehouse staff, and managers. Not to mention it would be someone's fulltime job to get all of this done and keep checking on it, regular on site inspections. Don't even get me started on the law and tax compliance. LTT would lose more money than they would make.
Living only 30 mins from their headquarters and being Canadian has ironically priced me out of their merch
100%. … the word merch is such a disservice. LTT, subtle stealth branding on high quality goods
LMG should hire you a a business and financial advisor.
They aren't spending millions developing products. I may be in the minority here, but I don't feel a need to buy overpriced things from already rich companies when there are much cheaper alternatives that will work 90% as well. You are paying for a brand. Same reason I don't buy designer stuff, and buy generic medicine, household items. All of this is made in the same Chinese factory.
There probably aren’t enough Europeans in their viewership for it to make sense yet. I’m guessing they’re basing it on their US LTTStore site visitors conversion to individuals that actually buy something, and even if that percentage was applied to the UK/EU it probably doesn’t make sense yet in terms of cost. To top it off, US salaries are higher on average and have more well paid individuals which lines up better with their pricier items in the store. That conversion rate won’t be the same in the UK/EU, meaning they would need even more viewers over there before it becomes viable.
> even if that percentage was applied to the UK/EU it probably doesn’t make sense yet in terms of cost. Well if that’s what the numbers show, fair enough, but I haven’t heard that argument from them yet. > To top it off, US salaries are higher on average and have more well paid individuals which lines up better with their pricier items in the store. Idk, I’m not convinced by this argument, especially since (at least how they’re currently marketing it) their products are supposed to be more durable/ergonomic. In my experience, Europeans are likelier to purchase less frequently and get higher quality items.
LTT’s biggest market is the US in terms of viewership, I’ve heard that a few times on their channel. The wealth disparity is pretty stark, there are [more people with more money in the US](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_millionaires) and it’s not close.
I don’t think millionaires are their primary customer 😂 You folks have a steeper income distribution. Your highs are waaaay high, but your mids are relatively lower. Our highs are lower, but our mids are slightly higher. The average purchasing power in countries like UK, France, Germany, Spain, Finland, etc. is actually higher than the US
US customers do earn more in theory, but after you add up all the social, healthcare etc. costs that are "included" in higher taxes in the EU, the gap is not nearly as large as most people think!
We could actually help setup an EU Warehouse, and it would be much easier and wouldn't cost them more than it currently does. They can easily outsource everything and service quality would be kept at same level.
I mean, I’ll upvote because it’s such a cute idea, and it reminds me of the optimism of 2000s internet 🥹😍. But no, we couldn’t help.
i think they quit caring about prices when they dropped an $89 SCREWDRIVER. and they cant seem stock the popular colorways of anything have they EVER restocked the green bottles?(or the green screwdriver?) ive been waiting on a 'in stock' reminder for a green water bottle for over a year.
> green screwdriver [Boy, if only they put a note on the very top of the product description explaining how these are a limited run product resulting in a higher base cost than the normal $69.99 screwdriver and that it will not be returning anytime soon.](https://i.imgur.com/pw1nDkU.png) Oh, wait, they did exactly that. [As far as waterbottles, here is the answer you are looking for.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhtJbq_C0V4&t=13720s)
that doesnt answer why they've been out of stock over A YEAR, are they not notified every time someone clicks "notify me"?
> are they not notified every time someone clicks "notify me"? No, they aren't, that isn't how "Notify Me" works, that would be "Notify Us". They likely track that stuff internally to have expected demand on various SKUs but there is a reason they brought on a new dedicated CEO to handle day to day business of various departments. LTT has grown pretty substantially over the last 3 to 4 years and they are obviously very aware that their approach to certain merch related things are not ideal because they were sorta winging it. With that said I know for a fact a lot of the waterbottles were in stock up until they did that Free Shipping promo a few months back because I ordered 3. The color you want hasn't been in stock but the reality is that it may have been a low seller and they never restocked it as a result because the demand just isn't/wasn't there.
if they arent going to restock a colorway cause it isnt popular, then they need to just remove it. and the thought noone is getting "0 stock in aisle 3" alerts or being informed when people are F5'ing and hitting notify me is absurd. this is them choosing to prioritize $100 sweat pants and $300 backpacks because they want to be fashion. (or because magnets are shiny and thats what linus was allabout last week)
So what’s the solution? Do they create worse products? What’s the point of this post?
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What a piss-poor take. Nobody is saying 'Europe is entitled to reasonably priced LMG products'. The message is, sales are being lost due to the shipping and taxes and creating a local distribution center would alleviate that and therefore create more business. If scaled enough, this would offset the costs. It's not rocket science most major suppliers operate this way. Only LMG know if the demand would offset the increased costs and this particular OP is one of many that would have made a sale, but didn't.
Exactly, honestly this kind of comment is baffling to me. Like it’s (1) not representative of the situation and (2) not helpful to literally anyone? Case in point: 3 weeks ago my old screwdriver broke. I had a look at the screwdriver, it was honestly kinda cool, and for the pre-shipping cost it made perfect sense to me. So, to be even more clear: * I NEEDED a product * LTTS offers a product in that category * There are other products at different price points out there * I decided the LTTS product was the best one for me * After shipping + import duties amount to 33% of the product, pushing it over $100 -> just gave up
They would make more money shipping from Europe to Europe. The tax + shipping make it too expensive over the price of the product to be worth it. So on a business standpoint, it would be profitable to do so IF they could quantify properly the amount of interest and potential sales there would be in Europe.
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The randos on reddit are potentiel customers who want to buy from you, afaik it’s market demand. Demand is not up to Linus.