This comes to my mind because many tax-free shops I found have their price 10% higher than other shops such as Amazon jp.
One example is AT4040 condenser microphone. On yodobashi, it is 36,420 yen. If I went through the tax-free procedure, it goes down to just 32,778 yen.
But on Amazon jp, it is 33,109 yen.
On Sound House (a Japanese audio store), it is 32800 yen.
Yes, the “tax-free” one is cheaper than others by few hundred yens. But in return, I need to go through extra exporting procedure in the airport.
So my question is: are so called tax-free shops really worth worth it?
3 comments
The outbound customs guy didn’t care about my tax free purchases in 2019.
The extra exporting procedure in the airport is usually just tossing your receipts from your passport into a basket at an unmanned counter, FWIW. So yeah, it can be worth it, especially if you don’t want to price hunt for certain items. I’d rather walk into Tokyu Hands and load up on a whole bunch of stuff in one shop and get tax free than find all those things online for *maybe* a little bit less. But if you’re looking for big ticket items – a few hundred bucks or more – then perhaps shopping around is worth it.
Tax-free stores are basically duty free shopping. It means you don’t pay the Sales/ Consumption Tax, otherwise known as Value Added Tax (VAT), otherwise known as Goods and Services Tax in some countries (GST). You will need to take your passport with you when you shop there because only certain categories of travellers can avoid the 8% VAT.
The tax free store’s pricing will always be a tiny bit lower and they attract the unsavvy customers but there’s a procedure for you to get your VAT refunded at the airport when you leave Japan so you will probably find that buying the cheapest option at a normal retailer will get you a better overall price once you get your refund.