![]() While all cruise ships have shops onboard, they carry relatively few items native to the areas you'll be visiting. Onboard shop management knows exactly what's for sale in each port and how much it costs, so they can offer competitive pricing to entice you to buy on the ship. Don't be surprised if some of the same items in port are cheaper on your ship. With limited hours, how do they make money? By offering great prices. Tax law demand that onboard concessions close down when the ship is in territorial waters, so when you come into port, ship stores will be closed. ![]() After alcohol and gambling, a cruise ship's third main source of revenue comes from your consumer dollars spent onboard. The first thing to know is that ships are in business to make money the more you spend onboard, the more revenue they earn. They want to know, "Where are the deals? Is it all duty-free?" Yet many passengers are confused about pricing in the onboard shops. Why not? There's a lot of revenue to be made. (All passengers should check on their local governmental policies regarding duty-free allowances.) Don't forget to factor in this tax if you're planning on making large purchases.Ĭruise companies are committed to the concept of shopping onboard. A single traveler gets an $800 exemption, with the next $1,000 worth of goods purchased subject to a flat rate of 3 percent. Upon entering the U.S., once you've met your duty-free allowance, you will still pay duty on everything else you've bought on the cruise ship or in a foreign country. (If they're not discounted, you could still save a little for not having to pay tax.) This means that if prices on certain items in the Caribbean are 30 percent off prices at home, you are actually getting 38 percent off because of the additional sales tax savings. So a savings of about 8 percent (depending on your state) is automatically yours. For example, in the Caribbean, you do not pay value-added tax (VAT), as you do in Europe, and you do not pay sales tax as you do in the U. "Tax free" is a more realistic proposition for shoppers looking to save. However, land-based shops often use the term "duty-free" to refer to discounted goods and mark-downs, as well as actual duty-free items. Cruise ships' duty-free shops are legit, as the products aren't sold to the people who live in the destinations. To remain duty-free, they must turn around and exit the country. ![]() In fact, this can only be done from airport or "in-bond" stores where the goods are off-loaded into warehouses, never mingled with regular goods and never sold to locals. "Duty-free" is supposed to mean that goods sold to you in a foreign country have entered that country without local import taxes attached. True bargains are only limited to certain categories of goods. The words imply deep discounts and tax-free shopping, but in reality, very few islands or ports are actually tax-free ports. Most Americans assume that if a store is duty-free, it's a discount resource. The idea of duty-free shopping in cruise ports and onboard ships is a major "gotcha" for marketing folks.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |