Corel Website Checkout is Broken

[pblakez]

Your website is broken checkout does not work

I been trying to buy some software for two days

your checkout does not work either through paypal or creditcard
I have been trying with firfox 5.0 and chrome 14.0.835.18

there is no contact listed for general errors on the website just a stupidly complex form

your twitter personel ( @corelsoftware @tmvn ) are too **** too understand

I have two accounts with you

email me so I can get this sorted

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

Just so you'll understand when you post to this web board you're not addressing Corel representatives, with the exception of about 2 (Simone UK, and Abiel), we are all just users of the various Corel (former Ulead) products. We volunteer our time here to help others.

Where are you located? This is important as Corel has websites for about every country. I'm in the U.S., and have noticed at times it would be down, while other countries such as the U.K. would not be. If you could provide that information I could try and relay it to someone to see what the problem is and I'm sure they will do what they can to get it up and running.

[pblakez]

Gidday

yes i know this is not official, hoping someone form Corel actual reads these forums

I am in Oz the website for oz and USA is the same (just change your country field drop down)

tried all the support options on website no reply

twittered the contacts they seem to have a problem comprehending?

cheers pb...

[LeonLonergan1]

Can sympathasise with "pblakez", I also am from oz (Hobart) and can perhaps offer an explanation. I recently also tried to buy VS Pro X4 and PaintShop Photo Pro X3 from the same drop down box (specifying Countrry) over a couple of days to no avail as the US site would not check out the items. The price difference on the 2 products US and Oz was $180 dearer in Oz, despite the exchange rate. It got the better of me in the end and I rang the Sydney number for Corel (to get someone in the Phillipines) tell me that Corel policy was not to sell to an address off-shore to the country whose web site one might be on. ie: In Oz I had to buy hard copies of programs from the Oz site.

I also questioned the "sales rep" about about the price differential and was advised that Corel in all countries operate independently. Strange. However the rep advised that if I felt that strongly about the matter I could download the programs from the US site. This worked. Only took me a couple of hours on our pathetic broadband network. Indirectly paid for it by exceeding my download limit which slowed me up even more for the next couple of weeks.

So you can buy from the US or other site provided you are prepared to live with a download version. As for the price differential, remains a mystery.

[Ron P.]

What I still can't understand is why countries like Oz pay so much more than here in the US? The US dollar is suffering greatly on the international front. So logically it should be the other way around, we should be paying more, since the value of our dollar is way down. Certainly Oz's currency can not be worse than ours right now.

Is there a VAT in Oz? If so is that added on after the purchase price, or perhaps Corel adds that into the purchase price for countries that have that governmental legalized means of theft..

[Ken Berry]

In fact the Australian dollar has been stronger than the US$ for a couple of months but has just slipped back to parity. So logic would certainly dictate that in Oz we should pay exactly the same price as in the US. And though we have VAT of 10% in Australia (called GST), it is included in the advertised price, not -- as in the US -- added on sneakily in the final bill... With municipal, state and federal taxes, you guys can end up paying nearly twice the advertised value when you open your wallets!!

[LeonLonergan1]

The is a VAT in oz, 10 percent (and called a Goods and Services tax, GST), but by law it has to be included in the advertised purchase price. Buying off-shore, US UK etc we escape both the off-shore and the local GST unless the purchase price exceeds $1000 (I think that is the limit). Having said that it does not explain a $100 variance on the same item one country to another when we are dealing with the same item from the same company, particularly when Corel is not in Australia. One could assume that the licensed importing agent is making a handsome profit.

[Ron P.]

I also questioned the "sales rep" about about the price differential and was advised that Corel in all countries operate independently.

I think that probably explains it more than anything. If the Corel stores operate independently, then the Corel store in Australia is marking up the product. Why? Could just be to increase profits, or could be that the overhead (cost of running a business) is much higher and needs to charge more. This is very common here. If you open a store in shopping mall, the cost of that is more likely to be much higher than if you open one in area that is less frequented. So you must pay more for the benefit of having more traffic in or around your business. You must recover this, so you pass this on to your customers, by charging more for your products. The customers will pay the higher price, for the convenience of the product(s) not having to drive to another part of town.