And BTW, I think I have solved the mystery. When converting from USD to EUR in the local shops they are using the *inverse* of the exchange rate. Instead of *multiplying* the USD price by the exchange rate, they are *dividing* by it (or vice versa). This explains with great accuracy the weird differences between the USA shop and the EU ones. Sigh.
P. On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:12 AM, Pierpaolo Bernardi <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 1:48 AM, Philippe Verdy <[email protected]> wrote: >> Note: Lulu has other sale points for other countries. > > Lulu was redirecting me automatically to the Italian shop. Switching > to USA, the price of the books are what they are supposed to be and > the shipping costs too are reduced. Like this > > Item Subtotal: $16.24 > Shipping Subtotal: $40.04 > Value Added Tax: $9.46 > Total: $65.74 (= 56.86 EUR today's exchange rate) > > Still a lot, but now it is less extravagant. The principal culprit of > the high price seems to be that the shipping cost for two books is > twice that of one book. No discount. > >> I can find volume 2 in France there >> >> http://www.lulu.com/shop/unicode-consortium/unicode-70-volume-1/paperback/product-21962094.html >> >> at €11.96 (but still not including 20% French VAT and still not the shipping >> costs from US only) > > If you proceed with the order, you will be shown shipping and VAT > before confirming. > >> And the 3 delivery costs options are at €9.99, €29.99, and €49.99 (same >> lengthy delays after printing from US; the third option being complelety >> useless). > > The cheaper shipping is not traced, I have found it totally unreliable > at my expense, and Lulu does not respond of missing deliveries. All > the prices I quoted above refers to the cheaper of the traceable > options. > >> Or interested people here could take a group order in a managed paged with >> help of a small team to make the delivery from US, at reasonnable costs. A >> local foundation could also take a volume order in advance for some region >> (EU+EFTA, Japan/Korea/Hong Kong, Russia, South Africa, India, Brasil, >> Canada); and if there remains some unsold items after some time (e.g. 6 >> months), they would be donated to local public libraries or university >> library. > > I doubt this would be cost effective, even relying on volunteers work. > > Best would be to use Amazon logistics. Many Lulu books are available > from Amazon, I must look into what's involved in making Lulu books > available from Amazon. > >>> Note that taxes are also not included; so expect to pay also the VAT to >>> the post office or delivery service to get the product > > Nowadays this is handled transparently for you by the carriers. If you > proceed in the checkout you will see your local VAT applied. > > Thanks for all the replies. Pardon my rant. > P. _______________________________________________ Unicode mailing list [email protected] http://unicode.org/mailman/listinfo/unicode
