I work for a US company in a UK office and my customers are all round Europe. We make most of our products in the US and initial distribution is from the US and latterly through regional offices/distribution centres.
Our list price is the same the world over (difference in exchage rates and any applicable taxes being the difference). Our customers will know very quickly if the Houston office supply something more cheaply than the Singapore office and are willing to buy from the Houston office to save some cash. It therefore makes perfect sense to have the same prices everywhere. Why should APR be different? Why not change the pricing policy if people are blatently getting round fixed high UK prices to save some money, then punish them with the old warranty malarky? To use a local term, thats pretty hard necked for a company that left the UK high and dry and are trying to use their name and US reputation to come back and charging 42% more for the same hardware thats available in the US to cover "costs".
The simple answer is we don't have enough margin in our products at the selling price they are offered for in the States. To equalize prices around the world we would have to significantly raise the prices in America. I think this is a legacy issue from when APR was very small. I do see how people could think we are trying to profiteer from international sales but that is simply not the case.
If you notice, the only hardware prices that are consistent round the world in this industry are from companies like ABT and MTM. I think the problem began when American companies began significantly undercutting the German tuners in North America. APR came about around that time in the late 90's and followed suit of what the current market environment in the USA was like at the time.
The automotive industry has always been the exception to global pricing though. For example, a brand new Golf R in the USA costs $36,000 or 22,900GBP. That same Golf R over here goes for 40,000GBP+ or $62, 860+.
I don't understand this "left the UK high and dry" sentiment I've seen around.
Our importer chose to do business with a competitor which left the UK market without support for a period of time while we put together a better solution. APR never "pulled out" of the UK market.
The UK market is so important to us that we decided to open an office and I volunteered to come and head it up. I left my family, friends, pets and all I know to come over here. And as you know, moving or travelling abroad seems really cool and exciting but its very difficult, time consuming and stressful.