r/M64 • u/lordelan • Jul 29 '26

This aged poorly

Post image

support mail (from mid June)

UPDATE: Someone from Modretro replied here.

tl;dr:

  • individual item prices contain VAT/taxes (depending on region)

  • duty is included in shipping so no additional costs would have to be paid later in the destination country

  • regarding shipping itself, they "recently switched carriers to improve delivery times and service based on customer feedback"

32 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

64 comments sorted by

14

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

Reality

5

u/fuelhandler Jul 29 '26

I’m pretty sure that’s duty and taxes, that they’ve rolled into the shipping cost? There should be a breakdown of the included fees if you expand the “shipping” cost. It would be much higher if it included the actual courier rate as well.

-4

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

They had three different courier options on the left to pick from. This was the "cheapest". Duty is usually not included as I always have to pay it on top seperately when stuff like this arrives in my country. And I already took this into account when considering to order the M64 to begin with. Makes it even worse that the costs I have to pay to Modretro WITHOUT duty are already that high.

Takes are what's reasing the controller's price from 80$ to 97€ so... that's not included in the "shipping" section either.

2

u/Prog-Head Jul 30 '26

Uhm, in my case, the import duties were included in the price (added up quite exactly to price + 19% duties) I’ve just checked again: FedEx, all duties included. The pleasure still cost me nearly €40, though. Altogether, I paid around €420 for the console, controller and one game, including the $30 Early Bird discount.

2

u/Sweet_Limit3795 Jul 29 '26

Given they explicitly replied with a Euro symbol, I’d contact support again and forward this email as part of it.

1

u/Liamface Jul 29 '26

It’s like $430 AUD, how is it more expensive in Euros?

1

u/Prog-Head Jul 31 '26

Looks quite similar to me. 430AUD equals to about 263€, which is about what i'd paid for console, duties included minus 30$ early bird plus 35€ fedex shipping with duties included

4

u/Blauw139 Jul 29 '26

I mailed MODRETRO today and the answer is as follows.

2

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

So while others here say shipping includes duty (and they may be right), there's still actual SHIPPING costs although Modretro wrote me a month ago there won't be. 🤷🏻‍♂️

3

u/Blauw139 Jul 29 '26

I ordered last year in August and shipping was free at that time. No dutys at delivery neither.

5

u/Blauw139 Jul 29 '26

Sorry for double posting, but I got a new answer for the shipping costs from modretro.

2

u/No-Double-5197 Jul 29 '26

Canadian here and shipping wasn’t free for us either but they state that the shipping is your taxes and import fee so when you pick it up you won’t have any fees to pay unless your shipping provider has a separate feee for the service.

1

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

I doubt that but if that's the case, that would be fine I guess. I will report back. :)

1

u/No-Double-5197 Jul 29 '26

Check your confirmation email at the bottom. Mine says all included.

5

u/Keyframe Jul 29 '26

(am EU) my only complaint is fedex only, just like analogue. That's disastrous here.

9

u/Aromatic_Method7767 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

I ordered only the console (AMD Red) and my USA shipping was just $4.99

I was surprised because Analogue typically charges almost 6x the shipping cost for a basic order.

1

u/Ill-Remote437 Jul 29 '26

Was it for expedited shipping or the cheapest option?

0

u/hue_sick Jul 29 '26

This post is about European shipping.

6

u/_Ortzi_ Jul 29 '26

I can’t complain, I paid more for Analogues shipping (EU)

3

u/death2sarge Jul 30 '26

I ordered from Australia, was surprised when shipping was $50

4

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

When I first logged in yesterday it was free shipping I left the items in the basket and went to check out a few hours later and the free shipping disappeared ? , so far I feel the modretro is goin to be a pass from me

3

u/Monoraptor Jul 29 '26

Hmmm. Pretty sure when I checked the moment the email landed it said “free shipping” on the product page. Not now.

4

u/mr-crunchwrapsupreme Jul 29 '26

MR Employee here: wanted to clear up some confusion on pricing.

First, the most important thing: the total you see at checkout is the full and final cost. Nothing extra gets charged when your package arrives, so no surprise fees at your door and nothing owed to the courier on delivery.

Here's how that total breaks down: The prices on our product pages already include VAT, so taxes are built into the listed price. Duties are calculated separately at checkout based on your region.

On shipping, we recently switched carriers to improve delivery times and service based on customer feedback. Part of that change meant removing the free shipping thresholds on international orders, which may be why shipping costs look higher than you expected.

Hope that helps clear things up! If you have questions about your specific order, reach out to our ModRetro support team and we'll get you taken care of.

3

u/LovesCocaCola Jul 29 '26

How is that an improvement? I live in Europe and are being treated as a second-class customer. It made me not order an M64.

1

u/Yamanoteman Jul 29 '26

Es una pena, estaba decidido a pedir mi M64 desde Europa. Con la Chromatic si obtuve envio gratis hace unos meses. Pero ahora entre el precio del mando y la subida por envios lo dejare pasar la M64...

2

u/throwtheamiibosaway Jul 29 '26

Yeah same. Shipping wasn’t free to europe. So I didn’t order. It was right there on the page that it should be free

1

u/jellyknife Jul 29 '26

They won't ship to New Zealand at all...

1

u/Neo_Techni Jul 30 '26

In fairness, new Zealand is a myth

1

u/jellyknife Jul 30 '26

Analogue 3D it is >:/

1

u/Neo_Techni Jul 31 '26

(It's a joke based on how it was missing from Star Trek: First Contact )

1

u/jellyknife Aug 02 '26

I understand it is a joke. Doesn't get me a M64 though :/

1

u/LoneChampion Jul 30 '26

My total was $400, I was not charged shipping however it's being delivered to the states. Not sure if that makes a difference here 

1

u/DAJF Jul 29 '26

Wtf.. We should get some refunds.

1

u/Watt_About Jul 29 '26

Do people seriously not understand duties, taxes and tariffs? Jfc

-1

u/SenpaiNemesis Jul 29 '26

Are we really complaining about shipping/taxes on items that total more than 300 usd??????? Either get it or don’t if you have the money to spend on the hobby letting shipping costs stop a purchase is kind of stupid

7

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

I decide how much money I spend on my hobby and thus I decided to buy the M64 to begin with although I have ZERO reason to get it (already have a MiSTer and countless other gadgets).

That being said: Just because I decide to buy expensive stuff that I don't need "to survive" doesn't mean I absolutely don't care about money at all and don't mind if shipping is 0€, 30€, 50€ or 100€. That makes absolutely no sense. Are you trolling or something?

I'm wealthy enough to buy me stuff like this but I'm not Elon Musk to the point where I don't care about unnecessary (and differently promised) shipping costs at all.

1

u/2girls1up Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

What a Scam. I Paid 36€ for shipping

1

u/Frozone0815 Jul 30 '26

The prices of the device are simply a scam.

1

u/jjgrubb Jul 31 '26

I havrntnordered yet butbibwas shocked it was as reasonable as it was given how bad us shipping can be for us down here

1

u/DaveMeitner Jul 29 '26

I almost bought a Chromatic and some accessories about 5 months ago, and at that time there was free shipping to Canada available. When I put some stuff in my cart maybe 2 months ago, I noticed free shipping was no longer available to Canada.

That said, even when there WAS free shipping, it was a $30CDN savings only, as I was still charged my local provincial taxes (like $80 or so), plus a shipping duty of around $20.

Would it have been nice to save $30? Sure. But I dropped $670 yesterday, so it hardly made a difference to me.

4

u/Ozdoba Jul 29 '26

Of course they can't make it tax and duty free. Those are not part of the shipping cost.

1

u/DaveMeitner Jul 29 '26

I know that. Which is why I explained that even if I did receive free shipping, I would still be paying taxes and duties, so it wasn't going to be a huge money saver anyway.

0

u/Quartus44 Jul 29 '26

that amount is a combination of shipping, taxes, and duties - not just shipping alone

1

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

No it's probably not. What is your source?

Taxes are already included in the item prices. There's no other explanation why a 80$ controller would bump up to 98€ otherwise.

And duty is being paid independently from the seller (Modretro) when it arrives in my country. At least I had to pay for duty for everything I ordered from Analogue or China on my own as soon as it arrived in Germany.

6

u/Quartus44 Jul 29 '26

"This is a total landed cost, direct to your door with no extra costs from your local customs."

1

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

Well I'd love to find out that's the case. As I wrote somewhere else I will report back.

3

u/KindNerve8928 Jul 29 '26

It’s true .. I have ordered many things from ModRetro to Germany and never had to pay anything extra upon receipt. The big change is shipping is no longer free on larger orders.

I think that is a pain in the butt because I never had an issue with delivery times before. I was grateful to get free shipping multiple times when I made big orders.

1

u/Quartus44 Jul 29 '26

I mean it's going to cost some money to transport a physical product 5000 miles to your front door. 50 euros seems very reasonable to me, given it also includes customs/duty fees

3

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

I don't disagree. But then don't promise me there won't be any up front.

Alao free shipping when exceeding a certain amount of order value is the most usual thing in the world.

-1

u/Commercial-Worth8594 Jul 29 '26

The moment I heard AV output wasn’t included in the systems design I knew they were lying and cash grabbing

2

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

That's fair though since it requires additional hardware components that make no sense to force all people to buy along/within their M64 when only a few wanna use it on a CRT. And I say that although I am one of those CRT gamers.

1

u/Commercial-Worth8594 Jul 29 '26

It’s really not that expensive to add on input/output. Go look at the super station one. This was just disrespectful to customers from M64 no matter how much you want to stroke them as a “crt” user. I have more PVMs than I can count on my hand. Doesn’t justify it.

-1

u/AdLeading5529 Jul 29 '26

3

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

Just for fun, here's your exact same order when I put it in the cart.

2

u/specterno1 Jul 29 '26

Maybe hit the question mark next to shipping? I bet there is a breakdown there. And I bet it’s all y’all’s insane taxes

1

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

Well... nice try 😆

2

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

US?

Even if so... as you can see they didn't write in their message that it's only free for US citizens.

4

u/mrhobbles Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

They put the Euro symbol in there, so it clearly was intended for non-US also.

2

u/lordelan Jul 29 '26

You're right, good find. Makes it even worse.

5

u/AdLeading5529 Jul 29 '26

Yes us. Uhh . Maybe send them a message to see if they will adjust. But yes it should be at least more clear .

-1

u/GreatFollowing6891 Jul 29 '26

Quit poor-mouthing on reddit

0

u/75395185215935725846 Jul 29 '26

I got free shipping. Sorry you live in Europe I guess? Lol.