Why is the Intuit web site charging more than Costco for the software. I would think that buying directly from Intuit would be the least expensive option?

[Lyne-TurboTax]

Did you call them ?

[tkkdnd]

As noted above .. they were of little help.. Just a call centre without any authority regarding pricing..  I believe it was an offshore call centre with limited abilities to help.

[tkkdnd]

yes I did

[keeblerelf]

This question is still relevant (in 2017, for 2016 tax year).  If Intuit persists in charging more for an online product, frustrated consumers such as myself will no longer buy the online product.  Bricks-and-mortar stores are not going to offer a product for less than they paid for it, so I suggest the way to handle this is for Intuit to offer the absolute lowest price directly to the consumer - say, starting at $16.95?  Interested in your response.

[steve-hm]

I am still not convinced that a retailer should be able to sell the product for less than the on-line source (direct from the manufacturer).

The retailer has to buy the product from Intuit, Intuit need to make a bunch of physical packages, box them and ship them to the retailers warehouse who then distributes them to every store to sell.  The retailer would not do all this work for a financial loss, so they must be buying the product cheaper than they are selling it so they gat the margin as profit.  Also, this means Intuit must be selling it to a retailer at a price that covers not only the program costs, but also the cost of packaging, warehousing and shipping the media (or just the license keys) to retailers like Costco.  There are several hands out to be paid along the path from Intuit to the Costco shelf.  Intuit makes money when they sell it through a retailer.  Intuit makes more money when they sell it though their on-line service. 

It would be nice if Intuit could give long term users and those willing to risk it and buy on-line, some sort of discounted rate based on the 'real costs' of the program development and the zero-cost distribution supply chain. 

Arguably, there is little in the way of convenience when going to a retailer versus sitting in my home office and just getting it.  If my time and effort is worth something, then the on-line option at a higher price seems like a bargain.  To buy it on-line, I saved the effort of getting cleaned up and presentable for public appearance (at least a shower).  I saved the time to get into my car and drive the nearly 40 minutes through traffic to the nearest Costco store.  I did not have to wait or drive around for 15 minutes looking to get a parking spot, wrangling lazy peoples shopping carts out of my way so I could get parked.  I did not have to wander through the store full of families out for a stroll taking all the aisle space with kids darting all over and yelling for mom to get this thing or that.  Even once I had the little blue box in hand, there was still the dreaded check out lines that seem to go on forever and move slow.   In the end, paying extra for an on-line copy that I could use in less than ten minutes, compares favorably to the 2 plus hours of my time, not to mention all the stress and anger of dealing with people all along the route to and from the store. 

Okay Intuit, fair enough.  But after buying this program for increasing costs each year for the past 30 years (even before it was called QuickTax), could I get any kind of price break?   The online sales model has only the cost of the programming to recover and maybe some e-commerce webserver hosting costs but there is no line of middle men with their hands out...  

[TurboTaxBrenda]

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