7938 Lego City Passenger Train 35% off at Amazon.fr

[Jasper Parnebrick]

OK, so I recently bought my first LEGO train during that crazy deal from Amazon.fr that I saw here posted by Ice a couple of weeks ago... Ever since I've been checking the Amazon France and Italy deals page, almost to the point of obsession. Its like an addict looking for that next perfect hit! Anyway, I've seen this one on both sites for the past few days.

Its actually €10 cheaper on the Italian site, but they have some expensive shipping charges to Canada, so I balked. Took another look tonight and went for it at the French site! I want to get two sets so that my son and I can have a better experience, plus he loves Red! The shipping was perfect, and I got it in like 4-5 days. Jury is still out on customs/duties or whatever - not sure about the final damage, but it was a killer deal.

So the deal now is €91.90, but theres that weird non-European citizen tax loophole, so the damage is really €76.84 + €9.57 shipping, so its really €86.41. That works out to $111.56 CDN or $107.94 USD

Long story short, not as great a deal as the 50% on the cargo train last time, but still much better than you find in stores which usually dont break the 25% off mark! I just cross my fingers that the box comes in decent shape like last time, and that I don't get torn a new one with duties!

[ricefields]

To decide on how good this deal is I always use US msrp and likely discounts to benchmark the savings and whether I should buy even though I am in canada. You can often get 25% off this set in the US so that makes it equal to $97.50 plus tax. Canadians typically encounter anywhere from 5% to 8% tax when making us purchases, so this comes out to about $103US. so $108 from amazon.fr is not bad but its the duties/taxes that will kill the deal. If you have to pay 13% and $8 fee on top of this (making it $22) , then I would not recommend buying this from amazon.fr, as that would just equal the US msrp of $129.99 that you can get anywhere/anyday should you have an opportunity to buy in US. While amazon.fr was good for the tower bridge, unimog, and cargo train because of their higher value and deeper discount, unfortunately its not that good for sets less than $150 unless the discount is higher than 45%. To some, paying the US msrp might be good enough compared to the canadian msrp (still 19% savings) due to lack of alternatives, but unfortunately the common 25% off discount you can get in the US, and the previous deeper discounts on amazon.fr has spoiled me!

[Jasper Parnebrick]

Wow, I never really had a chance to analyze it that much.. I was on the fence for a while about buying this. I kept going back and forth vs the US price, but I figured when am I going there next, and would it even be in stock wherever I went? I just don't know when this set ever goes on sale in the US, and would I have to drive down there to get it? the $22 extra would then be negated in gas, but yes I agree, its not a BARGAIN, like Cargo was...