I have never seen a chainsaw being sold in my area, I assume it's hard to find there too.
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They're in hardware stores here (Germany)
I live somewhere in Africa
i live near one of these third party shipment places that only receives parcels from the US, and there's always people picking up big Home Depot boxes and i just don't get it, what's in it? there's no way its cheaper to get fucking caulk or something like that imported from the US rather than acquiring it locally, the only thing that makes sense is that they're full of power tools and stuff like that, local taxes or the big box retail stores jacking up the prices in-country probably means that you can get the tools at a much better rate or catch them at a good discount in America that trumps the local price, even with the shipping cost
My wild hunch is that maybe chainsaws fall into some weird "machinery" classification with very high tariffs so it's far cheaper for a cousin to buy one in the US and ship it. If I'm right - the situation might have existed for decades or it might have happened sometime this year due to ~~President Deals~~ President Tariffs.
This happened a few times under Biden too.
I'm guessing it's somehow a way to dodge tariffs.
I had Malaysian neighbors who would buy a laptops every time they went back for a visit. Each person could bring 1 laptop tariff free and they'd resell them when they arrived.
Central/South America makes sense. I do not understand west-Africa when you'd probably get those chainsaws even more cheaply somewhere in Asia, unless it's a language barrier issue.
Well, that requires having family in the appropriate part of Asia, which will only be true some of the time. At least, I'm pretty sure the people in OP's story didn't travel to America just to buy a chainsaw.
Good point.
:pochita-pog: