Last Monday there was a small event in Valencia that went mostly unreported but it required special police patrols, changes of traffic directions and the patience of a saint. It was probably one of the most successful pieces of advertising I have ever seen. Media Markt announced that Monday was we pay your VAT day. I was going to go on Tuesday to get the new Mac on which I am writing this but thought, well 16% less today than tomorrow, so I went.
I wasn’t prepared for it thought and to buy the product get a receipt and wait for clearance to get through the tills took me 3 and a half hours. I have a spanking new MacBook now but everyone else in Valencia has something too. The doors opened at 6am and by 9am apparently they had sold out of the Acer Aspire netbooks they were advertising at 149 Euros. I got the penultimate MacBook but iWork had to be ordered for me because, guess what? there were not any copies left at 11.30am.
Fantastic marketing effort then because they announced it as “We Pay Your VAT”. Well if they had said 16% off everything in the store then they wouldn’t have had so much success, it doesn’t sound too good in the current climate. The thing they played with is that everyone in Spain hates paying tax. I bought my Mac and got a receipt as I can discount another 16% against income for VAT because it is still there on the bill but a discount has been applied. 32% off a Mac sounds good to me though.

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