As a matter of fact, it is necessary to compare Apple prices in the USA and the Russian Federation. Personal experience

At first I wanted to write a commentary on ambiguous price comparisons for Apple products in the article , but the text was too much.

Pochtoycom (in fact, not only they) are cunning, comparing the prices of Apple in Russia and in the United States. Indeed, it is possible to buy iPhones in the USA cheaper than in Russia. However, there are several features that should not be forgotten, and for some buyers they may be blocking. For me it turned out to be an interesting quest, which I successfully completed. And then I will tell you how. If you want to complete this quest on your own, then do not read further - spoilers under the cut;)

For a start it is worth saying that Apple is trying in every way to prevent purchases through forwarders. After examining the forwarders forums, I found out that, with high probability, the cards of the original Russian banks are not accepted for payment. Cards linked to ruble accounts also have a chance not to pass. Ideally, use American Visa with a dollar account of a large international bank. Then I decided not to risk it and used just such a card in plastic. It must be remembered that often such a card is not served for free. I was lucky and I already had such a card as part of a package offer from a bank.
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Next, Apple identifies forwarders at the shipping address. I also had to invent something here so that the parcel would still come to the warehouse. As a result, I indicated an address with an error, which is enough for Apple’s artificial intelligence not to notice the similarities with the address from the blacklist. The main thing is not to overdo it. The package is automatically routed to the desired regional office by the index, but then the person-postman delivers to the actual address and he easily corrects typos in the street name (but not in the house number). Whether your address trick worked, you will find out not at the stage of purchase, but immediately before the actual dispatch of the goods. It should be remembered that the funds on your card at this point will already be blocked and in case of failure (refusal to send) the defrost may take up to 30 days depending on your bank. Therefore, you will not be able to experiment with the address too often, unless, of course, you have enough funds on the balance sheet for testing. Blocked funds are not actually written off, but you cannot use them for other purchases. In fact, you will feel the difference between blocking and debiting only with a credit card - there interest for using credit funds drip only from the moment of actual debiting. In this case, it will not be superfluous to change the payment card each time for the purity of the experiment.

When ordering, the required parameter is also billing address. This is the address for fiscal letters (invoices for payments, receipts, etc.) Forwarders, for obvious reasons, are not allowed to indicate their address there. And something needs to be specified there, and with a phone number (and yes, the Russian will not work here). Again you need to invent something. I took a fictitious address from an online random USA test addresses generator with telephones. Formally, the address is correct and passes automatic checks Apple. The letter will not reach there, but this address in our case is a mere formality, since you make a prepayment by card and therefore you receive only a receipt and send it only by e-mail.

And yes, I almost forgot, I had to create a separate American Apple ID and buy from it. Although there are pluses here - applications for eSIM are for some reason unavailable in the domestic App Store, and the registered American Apple ID can be used to install them.

Whether all these tricks will work again - I do not know. There are many messages on forwarders' forums about the refusal to send an order from the official Apple store. I can assume that the more successful buyers simply do not write on the forums, so the percentage of failures can not be calculated here. From personal experience, I can add that similar steps in the American Tiffany store were unsuccessful - at the very last moment they refused to send the goods to the warehouse.

Simplify the lives of customers can the fact that some time ago, Amazon became the official reseller of Apple, but they do not disdain to send to the addresses of forwarders. Although an exception may be made for Apple products, I have not yet had a chance to verify this. Anyway, there is another nuance - the guarantee. Yes, Apple gives an international limited warranty on the iPhone for one year. But American phones are slightly different from Russian ones.

And slightly here it means that if the electronics break down, the filling changes almost completely, and in Russian official repairs, the motherboard with the radio module of the required revision will not be available and in the worst case you will simply be denied the repair. Oh yeah, do not forget that American chargers are not plugged into European outlets. Fortunately, they at least maintain a voltage of 220V.

In the end, I bought an iPhone XS at the start of sales for $ 999. Shipping costs with insurance came out about $ 50. The deadline was a little less than two weeks from the moment of payment to receipt at the point of issue. At that time, it was about 20,000 Rubles cheaper than in the official Apple store, but one should not forget that there are still unofficial resellers.

Now you will need to add a fee to the price. It is easy to calculate that $ 999 is about € 830. It turns out that you will have to pay 30% from € 330, that is, add about € 100 to expenses, plus a fee for administering this payment by a forwarder company.

Is all this effort worth the price difference? I do not know. I wanted to try it and I did it. Maybe I will try to buy another iMac when the duties are 15% from the entire purchase instead of 30% for exceeding the limit of € 500. For expensive purchases such a fee would be more profitable.