In the 80s it was a thing to fly from Europe to the US to buy PC hardware and software. The price differences paid for the (expensive) flight costs and then some.

In the 1980s, a friend got his start by buying packaged software in bulk from the US and reselling it in Europe. The retail price differences were large enough he made bank on it.

It's called arbitrage.

Eventually, other people figured it out and the prices leveled out.

Arbitrage opportunities crop up all the time.

I remember when Adobe Creative Suite came out (I think?) and Australian said that a first class flight to Los Angeles and the American price were less than the Australian price. Hoping Bruce or Sheila [1] Cunningham [2] can chime in

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNBy1D1Y0h4 damn I was only familiar with the audio; this aged extremely poorly.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Cunningham's_L...

It's been true (maybe still is? Haven't checked) for quite awhile; people I know would always hit up the Apple Store when visiting the USA and return bearing gifts, because the price savings was quite noticeable.

~2012 was the same thing. The usd was very low compared to eur, but the apple store sold things in ~same value in eur + tax. So you could legit buy an airplane ticket (not even a low cost, regular line was ok), visit NY for a weekend and buy a macbook, come back, and end up paying the same amount.