PRICE

[Terblanche]

 
Once again ...

How is it possible that your UPGRADE price via email is ZAR377.00 while you can buy the full product from SimMarket for 10.49 Euro = ZAR180.00

Somewhere, someone, is trying to make an extra buck with a 100% mark-up.

[virtuali]

you can buy the full product from SimMarket for 10.49 Euro

That's the Black Friday offer, which of course can be get here too. And, unless you login, Simmarket shows prices without VAT, which will be charged on payment after you login, since they don't automatically display VAT based on your IP, like Digital River.

Somewhere, someone, is trying to make an extra buck with a 100% mark-up.

We don't set the price in any currency other than the USD and, the price on our site for KCLT is 15.99$ for the full product, or 11.19$ for the update, which during this week is the same as the Black Friday offer ( 30% less than full price ).

The way Digital River works, they check your IP and set the currency automatically AND will add your local VAT on top of that. If your currency is not the USD, the exchange rate is set automatically by Digital River.

But of course, you can CHANGE the currency to be anything else so, we suggest using the USD, because that's the only currency WE decided the price for. I don't know why the exchange rate from USD to ZAR is so bad on Digital River, the USD/EUR is way more reasonable, for example. The USD/CHF exchange is also very bad.

When you are billed in USD, the exchange rate will decided by your Credit card company ( or PayPal ), and while there still be some kind of extra exchange fee, I'm sure it will be lower Digital River's. That's the general rule for every purchase in currency different than your own: always choose to be billed in the original currency the price is set, NOT your own currency, and let your payment provider handle the exchange, this is always valid, not just here.

And of course, both here and on Simmarket, you'll be charged an extra 15% for your local VAT, that's just a reminder to make a proper comparison that, once you'll switch the currency to the USD, you'll find the slightly better price is obviously here.

[Terblanche]

you can buy the full product from SimMarket for 10.49 Euro

That's the Black Friday offer, which of course can be get here too. And, unless you login, Simmarket shows prices without VAT, which will be charged on payment after you login, since they don't automatically display VAT based on your IP, like Digital River.

We've never paid any VAT from SimMarket, neither from Aerosoft, nor ORBX, also not UK2000 ... come to think of it, neither Amazon, nor MarketPlace. FSDT is the only vendor that charges South African VAT on top of the prices except if you are located in South Africa there is absolutely no reason to charge VAT on your products.

[virtuali]

We've never paid any VAT from SimMarket, neither from Aerosoft, nor ORBX, also not UK2000 ... come to think of it, neither Amazon, nor MarketPlace. FSDT is the only vendor that charges South African VAT on top of the prices except if you are located in South Africa there is absolutely no reason to charge VAT on your products.

- FSDT is not a "vendor", you are not buying anything from us. We are just a DEVELOPER. You are buying from Digital River, that's the vendor.

- VAT for sales of Digital goods sold by foreign companies to individuals IS due in South Africa, since 2019:

https://www.vertexinc.com/resources/resource-library/africa-taxing-digital-services-supplied-foreign-companies

Key sentence here is:

There was also an increase in the threshold level that triggers registration obligations for affected foreign companies. The threshold increased from ZAR50,000 (circa USD$3,500) to ZAR1 million (circa USD$70,500).

Which means, if Aerosoft or OrbX or UK2000 are not making at least 1 milion ZAR / year, they are exempted from registering (and thus charging) VAT.

Digital River, being obviously way larger than all of these combined, will surely surpass that threshold, hence they are required to register in South Africa for VAT , and charge you, and then sent the collected VAT there.

I really hope you were not implying we or Digital River are "pocketing" an "undue" tax, or you think a large company like Digital River that operates globally doesn't know when and where VAT should be applied.

And BTW, Amazon says they DO charge VAT in South Africa for digital goods:

AWS (digital service)

https://aws.amazon.com/it/tax-help/south-africa/

Ebooks (digital good)
http://www.myebook.co.za/south-african-authors-will-now-pay-vat-on-amazon-ebook-purchases