just wondering if anyone else has noticed this or maybe has some idea... of what might be going on here. i got an email from them about a 17% off deal for black friday and thought maybe i'll buy some jades i don't have. first i noticed the price on the jades since the last time i bought one from there a few months ago, is higher. comparing the site price to my email receipt.
then i noticed that the price on the page says 'inc VAT' for any item there. my understanding is that being from the US, i don't pay VAT. so i thought maybe it removes it during checkout. on the checkout page, after i tell it my address here in the US, it says:
'VAT (Tax free export shipment)- $0'
but yet nothing in the prices of the bottles or the total price has been changed. if the VAT was already included in the prices, shouldn't something be deducted?
then i experimented with the cart page. you can change your country there. i found that if i change it to a country in Europe, the 'inc VAT' message will appear under your cart total. however, the moment you switch it back to United States, that message disappears, and yet, the price remains exactly the same.
now, i'm no alfred einstein, but something seems screwy about that. at worst, it seems possibly shady. at best, assuming that if i place an order at some point the VAT is actually deducted, it seems they may have cost themselves some business by showing inflated prices that people in the US aren't actually going to pay. myself personally being an example. i'm not going to risk actually going to the paypal checkout page just to see if it finally gets deducted. it really should be well before that point. i sent an email yesterday, still no reply, which is still in the acceptable window, but it would've been nice to get to the bottom of it while the sale was still going. i do have the code still in my cart, with the discount still, and have sent another email. but the higher prices if they stand, kind of kills the value of the deal for me.
edit- the 17% off code just got dropped so i'm definitely not buying anything now. but i'm still wondering, has anyone else noticed this? actually, comparing to my receipt from a few months ago, the prices on everything are now higher at the site. so i have to wonder if the VAT price actually did get deducted when i bought last time and that explains the difference. which just makes it annoying to think i may have missed out on a great deal because their site doesn't show me what i'm actually going to pay.