The Tax Free Offer
Specialist & Designer/Luxury Products
The Tax Free offer in air travel is a pretty eclectic proposition. It includes specialist categories like electronics, cameras, leather goods, fashion jewellery and watches, clothing, sunglasses, accessories, etc. Most airports carry a range of these items.
In addition, at the major airports you’ll find designer and luxury items like expensive jewellery and watches, handbags, designer clothing, accessories etc.
Contrary to the name, though, these products are not always sold free of tax. I’ll explain this in the next post.
What Tax Free Products Can You Find Online?
All these products represent a significant chunk of the Duty and Tax Free business. Despite that, you don’t see much of them online, particularly at the high end. So checking prices in advance is difficult. Your best bet is to have a price comparison app on your phone to check prices when you’re in-store.
Airport Websites
London Heathrow has by far the best and widest Tax Free online presentation.
It includes the retail offers of 27 boutiques, including some very high end stores. Moreover, there’s a telephone “reserve and collect” pre-order option which lets you check availability and prices in advance. Unfortunately, the UK government eliminated Tax Free sales a few years ago so most of the products you’ll find there are Tax Paid. You can find some discounted products at some specialist retailers at the airport. Plus, World Duty Free has a small online range of mid to low priced jewellery, watches, and sunglasses discounted to the Tax Free price. But all the high end products are Tax Paid.
Other than that, the possibilities are pretty sparse. This is what you’ll find online:
- Rome Airport publishes an Airport Luxury Shopping Guide showing a pretty nice selection of designer leather goods, clothing, jewellery, and watches.
- Frankfurt Airport’s Online Shopping Site presents a limited offer of electronics, watches, jewellery, luggage, and toys. It’s a mix of Tax Free and Tax Paid products.
- Copenhagen Airport boasts a pretty good range of Tax Free products. However, their website only shows a small assortment of sunglasses as well as well as some watches and jewellery under the “Other” section.
- Schiphol has both a product page and a special offer page showing a selection of moderately priced electronics, watches, jewellery, fashion, toys, and luggage.
Retailer Websites
There are also a few Duty Free retailers who present some specialist merchandise online in addition to the standard Duty Free offer:
- DFS (US, Asia, Middle East)
- Dubai Duty Free
- Duty Free Americas (US)
- Everrich (Taipei) – Chinese only
- JAL DF (Tokyo Narita)
- HK Airport Online Shop, (Hong Kong)
- iShopChangi, (Singapore),
- King Power (Bangkok)
- Lotte Duty Free, Shilla Duty Free, Shinsegae Duty Free (Seoul)
- World Duty Free (UK)
The following stores are major airport electronics retailers:
- InMotion – Airport Store List
- Capi – Store List
- JB HiFi – Store List
That’s about it for airports. So your research possibilities are pretty limited. If you find any other online airport offers, let me know.
Airline Websites
Regarding airlines, those with an online retail presence generally show their entire assortment (see the Find Duty Free Online section.) So you can research in advance or while you’re on board.
For more on this subject, have a look at the next post, the Free-Standing Boutiques.