As much as we love our “local” (European) fitness brands on this site, we are suckers for the established, big-name brands from the U.S. that everybody knows and loves. If you live in the U.S., you may not realize how advantageous your position is when it comes to getting your hands on these items.
Base prices are lower, shipping prices are lower, and there are zero import fees. With so many up-and-coming brands to try out, I can completely understand why you’d always stick to domestic brands and manufacturers.
…but if you do live abroad, things can get (sometimes a lot) trickier. You gotta consider fitness shipping costs.
We’ve covered a number of different European brands and pieces of equipment before, and it’s really quite a shame that these companies and their products are oftentimes overlooked in favor of more established American brands (and their oftentimes extensive marketing budgets).
However, sometimes you just really want to give those popular, if not preeminent brands a try.
I mean, who doesn’t want to lift with a Rogue barbell or take a hike with a GORUCK bag slung over their shoulders?
Today, we’re going to take a look at the question that often arises for non-American customers when ordering from American retailers with a large, international presence:
Do you order from the “local”, in-country branch (where base prices can be a bit higher) or do you shell out higher shipping and import fees to have your gear shipped directly from the U.S. warehouse?
Truth be told, ordering “local” will almost always be your best bet…but in some cases, the math is much closer than you might expect it to be…
Table of Contents
Rogue
If you’re at all into the fitness space, you know who/what Rogue is. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Rogue has its hands in just about everything these days, from CrossFit to Strongman to the PBR (Professional Bull Riders).
Rogue produces a lot of fitness equipment and has local fulfilment centers around the world…which makes sense because a lot of people everywhere want their stuff.
We took a look at the prices of 4 very different pieces of Rogue equipment to get an idea of how much each piece would cost if it were shipped from America to 3 different countries in Europe. We also looked at how much the same items would cost if ordered directly from Rogue’s European branch.
*NOTE: The prices seen below are before local customs taxes are included. Each country’s rate is different, but as a rule of thumb, add 20 percent to the total for each price (when shipping from the U.S.) or, add 25 percent for a “worst case” estimate if you are thinking about shipping to your country and don’t know the rate.
The four items were:
The Ohio Bar (cerakote)
The P-5V Garage Pull-up System
The Foam Games Box
The Wide Band Booty Shorts
Now let’s take a look at what these items’ base prices are in America:
Now let’s take a look at how much these items will run you when ordered from the different Rogue sites to various EU countries.
If you order directly from the U.S., the Ohio Bar will run you $633 to Germany, $715 to Spain, and $883 to Slovenia:
NOTE: We applied a 1:07/1, USD/EUR exchange rate, which was the exchange rate at the time of publication, to come to the prices listed from the European websites.
The same product will run you $498 to Germany, $520 to Spain, and $517 to Slovenia if ordering from Rogue Europe:
Taking a look at the pull-up bar, it will run you the $452 to Germany, $715 to Spain, and $688 to Slovenia:
On Rogue Europe, these prices drop to $224 to Germany, $240 to Spain, and $235 to Slovenia:
Next we have the foam box. From America to Germany, the price is $691. To Spain it’s $758 and to Slovenia it is $1035(!):
As is probably expected by the point, the prices drop to $430 to Germany, $475 to Spain, and $464 to Slovenia when ordering through Rogue Europe:
Finally, we have the shorts. From America, the prices go $212 to Germany, $226 to Spain, and $236 to Slovenia:
…and from Rogue Europe, prices are $60 to Germany, $54 to Spain, and $58 to Slovenia:
Knowing that shipping price can change, sometimes drastically, as items are bundled, I added all of these items to the same order and took a look at their total respective prices. From America to Germany the total price was $1,520 while it was $1,634 to Spain and $2,119 to Slovenia:
As expected, prices were lower from Rogue Europe. To Germany the total price was $1,168, to Spain it was $1,218, and to Slovenia it was $1,222:
I didn’t have the heart to look at much heavier power rack or pull-up rig shipments. The shipping costs on these beasts alone make “local” purchases much more economical.
Overall, the Rogue prices probably confirm what most people already thought (knew?): it’s usually cheaper to buy from the local distributor. However, with GORUCK, things got slightly more interesting…
GORUCK
As with Rogue, I picked a few different products to “mythically” ship to Europe from both the main, U.S. website and from the GORUCK EU branch.
For GORUCK, the products were:
The GR1
The Ballistic Trainers
The Simple Sandbag
The total base price of these items from the U.S. store was:
When shipping from America, the GR1’s total cost to any of the three countries was $370:
In contrast, from GORUCK EU, the prices were $438 to Germany, $454 to Spain, and $459 to Slovenia:
Regarding the Ballistic Trainers, the price was consistently $175 to each of the 3 countries on this list:
…and from Europe, the prices were $160 to Germany, $165 to Spain, and $171 to Slovenia:
Finally, the Sandbag’s total cost was $105 to all 3 countries:
Meanwhile, from GORUCK EU, the total cost was $100 to Germany, $104 to Spain and $105 to Slovenia:
As with Rogue, I also “shipped” all three items together from America with the total costs (before customs) coming to $580 to any of the countries:
Total costs for Europe were $677 to Germany, $701 to Spain, and $713 to Slovenia:
As you can see, shipping from the GORUCK EU website was the less expensive option in almost all individual cases, but the difference between it and the GORUCK main page was much smaller than the difference between Rogue’s and Rogue Europe’s prices.
When it came to the total shipment, ordering from GORUCK’s American store resulted in lower prices every time. Depending on the customs rates for the importing country, in many cases, ordering (in bulk) from America is the better deal!
Don’t be surprised if ordering from other equipment and gear manufacturers, especially lighter, but still relatively expensive items follow a similar pattern.
Availability
Another topic of interest when comparing distributors is overall item availability differences.
If you have your heart set on a cerakote Ohio Bar or some plain, Ballistic Trainers (specifically in size 10 or 11) you’re never going to have trouble finding what you want from any of the manufacturers distributors. This “bread and butter” content is pretty much always available everywhere.
In contrast if you want more niche items, sometimes ordering from the American site is your only option. Take a look at GORUCK’s bag selection on it’s main site:
…vs on GORUCK EU
Truth be told, GORUCK did launch their EU site only a few months before this article was published. Hopefully their EU availability catches up with their U.S. options.
It’s also harder to find cheap stuff that’s either being discontinued, is already out of date, or that other people just don’t want. Rogue’s “DEALS”:
vs. Rogue Europe’s
Circumvent by Buying Legit Local?
For many of you, we’re not telling you anything you don’t already know (don’t try to act too smart and all-knowing, though; we’re in the Facebook groups where this topic has been discussed!) If you happen to be contemplating an order from GORUCK or Rogue and didn’t know the better option…you’re welcome!
That being said, just because an option might be less expensive doesn’t mean that it is necessarily the “best” option. Over the past few years, we’ve dedicated ourselves to trying out more European-based fitness brands to find out which products are legit competitors to U.S. stalwarts…and which ones you’re better off passing on.
Hopefully these brands see an opening and really start putting themselves out there, even putting together events like the “Rogue Challenge” or a “GORUCK Tough” to gain some more local traction and to get more local athletes involved.
Until then, I guess I’ll get to have more fun making ghost orders to compare prices and receiving the inevitable “Hey, GARAGE GYM REVISITED. You still got items in your cart!” types of e-mails.
It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.
