The question of Adobe's International Pricing discrepancy was also raised after the launch of CS3, and has been discussed in these forums in that context.
This message from Adobe in May last year:
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Here are some concrete examples of factors that make costs higher in Europe compared to North America.
It costs Adobe 5 times more to manufacture and manage inventory in Europe because:
*We must maintain different skus for each language version to support different labeling requirements, support information, and sales requirements.
*We maintain smaller quantities per language, in keeping with market sizes, which increases costs for printing, inventory management, and inventory disposal.
* The costs associated with our value-added reseller channels are 25% higher.
* We maintain 2.5 times as many field marketing employees in Europe as in North America to support our creative business at a certain level of quality across local markets. However, the revenue per employee is smaller, so the overall costs per unit of revenue is 4:1 in Europe compared to North America.
* Variable marketing expenses are 46% higher.
* Development costs are approximately $2.5$3 million per language for each of the 14 languages Adobe Creative Suite supports.
We cannot provide specific numbers, but these percentages and multiples capture real differences.
Its natural to compare pricing and pricing uplift across similar companies, but in this case, the comparison can be deceptive. The value of different products to customersand the costto companies to develop, sell, and support those productscan vary significantly from product to product, and manufacturer to manufacturer. Adobe does not develop our pricing for Europe or the rest of world by simply applying an uplift to the US pricing. As stated earlier, we develop our pricing by weighing customer research and our costs of doing business. We cant comment on the methods that other companies use to set their prices for Europe and the rest of world.
Its understandable why customers would expect to be able to purchase the same product at the same price when ordering and downloading directly from the Adobe Web site at www.adobe.com. Today, however, we still sell the majority of our products through traditional retail channels, and we optimize our pricing for that way of doing business. We depend on our retail partners in local markets to help us reach as many customers as possible, and we have a policy of not undercutting them on price. In addition, the Creative Suite 3 applications are large and require significant time to download. For many customers, online downloads will not serve as a reasonable purchase option for some time. However, as bandwidth increases and customer expectations change, well need to investigate ways to optimize our pricing for this approach.
Lastly, some higher regional costs will remain regardless of the method of purchase. For example, customers will still read about our products through local press to whom we reach out; they will meet local Adobe sales people who conduct seminars, participate in user groups, and visit large customers; and they will rely on support resources that Adobe makes available in these markets. All of these efforts impact the business costs of securing the sale, whether that sale is delivered online or in a box.
Customer service agents do not really have time to browse external websites, but I hope this deals with the questions you asked.
Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Yours Sincerely,
Joel Williams
Adobe Customer Service
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