Please bear in mind that there is a regulation in EU that prices of the same product should not differ based on the country you are coming from (source: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat..., "Price discrimination is not allowed" section).
Which presumably affects and references only EU country pricing, so you need one 'EU price', which can be different from non-EU countries?
I also wonder what the implementation has been (but not for much longer) without a single currency. I wasn't aware of this rule, and as a consumer have certainly seen variation in EUR/GBP rates (across different things that have the same EUR price say but not GBP).
Must be challenging for big product sellers as opposed to service providers too, Amazon (shop) for example.
The rule is against discriminating based on country of origin, not currency. While an EU citizen from a non-Euro country might prefer paying in their local currency, they should be able to choose to pay in Euros and get the same price as everyone else.
I don't understand, are you saying it only applies to Euros?
I assumed (and understood from the link) that it applies to all EU member states, which presently includes the UK. Since the exchange rate fluctuates, there must be some margin of error allowed, otherwise it's almost impossible (and certainly more expensive) to implement with more than one currency.
As I understand them, if you accept Euros at all then you also have to accept them from customers in countries outside the Euro zone such as the UK. So if you try to discriminate against Brits by charging more in GBP than in EUR, they can bypass it by exchanging the money themselves.
In Poland almost everything is 1/3 of the price compared to the rest of the EU for the same "stuff", arguably most have Polish branding but there are common products(Nestle, Coca Cola, etc) that are significantly cheaper.
Disclaim: I'm American and I'm mostly guessing here,
I know that sometimes companies create multiple SKUs of products to get around certain restrictions. For example, if the Coca-Cola in Poland is only sold in Poland, and is different from what's sold in France (let's pretend your flag is on the can) - then they're technically "different products" and don't have to follow the same regulations.
I know the WD easy stores sold at best buy are best buy specific so that they don't have to price match them with competitors, even though what the competitors sell have identical internals.
Oh yes,the famous brand products with less good stuff in them. Essentially,there are 3 unofficial markets in Europe: local market, western countries and the rest... Obviously the rest get it worse. European commission were investigating this couple of years ago,not sure where they are with it now.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/60884...
That's just different shops having different prices. The price discrimination that is banned would be like a shop near a border charging different prices to locals and border shoppers.
Europe is truly unique in this regard. For instance, my father in law bought a Lithuanian made furnice from a retailer in Latvia because it was cheaper than if he would have bought in Lithuania. Car reimport exist as well,where a German would buy a car made in Germany from a Lithuanian dealer and transport it back to Germany,because it's cheaper. There are some companies that import medication, repackage and sell abroad in markets where the same medication costs more( this one is an old one,not sure if it's still the case)
We found doing it per country had a huge impact on rest-of-world LTVs.