Luxury Hedge tells you the cheapest country to buy your luxury good, taking into account prices, real time exchange rates and tax refunds. The index is personalised for your home country, comparing to what you can buy it for at home, with your home set to 0%. 

1. Product Prices:

Luxury Hedge regularly researches and monitors the price around the world of thousands of products across major luxury brands. We obtain the current prices in every market the brand is sold in.  We use this (and daily exchange rates, as well as available traveller tax refunds) to create our brand indexes.

2. Exchange Rates:

We use live exchange rates that update throughout the day. Our index is real time. With so much exchange rate volatility, the prices of luxury goods can be dramatically cheaper, or more expensive, overseas.

3. Taxes and tax refunds:

We’ve researched the VAT, GST and sales taxes of all countries around the world! Shopping tax free is a real way to save when eligible. In some countries, the tax refund increases depending on the price of the good you buy. We’ve taken all this into consideration, where the luxury hedge index will show you the relative prices with and without tax. We’ve also taken into account the commission points that refund companies, such as Global Blue, usually take. For example, even though the VAT rate for some products in Greece might be as high as 24%, you never receive that much tax refund back. It’s not an exact science, but it will give you an indication of whether you will save when shopping overseas.

You can either search for a specific product, a brand overview, or a destination guide.

1. Specific Product

Search for a specific product of a brand by either name, description or product code. Perfect if you know what you are shopping for, or standing in an airport about to catch a plane, and need to make a quick decision! This search will give you the price around the world already converted to your home currency at today’s exchange rate- which means you can quickly browse the prices around the world- both tax free and tax inclusive- without doing any currency conversions! It will also give you the index for the product based on your home country- eg if the index is +15% that means it is 15% more expensive compared to your home country. Finally, it gives you the direct link to the product url on the official product page for the brand for each country around the world. Which means you can also see the price in the local currency of the country you are travelling to, as well as all product photos and information.

2. Brand Overview

Can’t find the product you’re searching for? Or maybe you’re after a general overview of whether the brand as a whole is more expensive or cheaper in the destination you are travelling to. For our brand overview Luxury Hedge picks popular products across a range of lines within a brand. The index is based on the average of these products. We also give you the percentage differences for six products as well. Our results are shown in percentages to give you an overview of whether a brand is cheaper, or more expensive, in a country you are travelling to.

3. Destination Guides

Know exactly where you’re going and that you’re ready to shop? Our handy destination guides gives you quick data on a destination. These guides are based on a brand overview (rather than a specific product) and list each brand index – both tax inclusive and tax free- for a destination. Eg if you’re heading to Japan our destination guides will quickly tell you whether you will save or lose buying Chanel, Dior, VCA and more in Japan.

Select the home country where you live. For example, if you live in Australia the relevant country site is Australia. Do not select the country you are travelling to. Instead, you will be able to filter the results by countries. The following countries have specific websites. All other countries should select ‘International Site”.  

We currently cover the following brands, and we are adding more on a regular basis. Suggest a brand here.