Unavailable in Europe unless you want to import one from the US or China.
And what is the problem with that? Order it and it will get delivered.
The purchase and the delivery is usually not the problem.
Ignoring the potential customs hassle (depends entirely on the seller, some have local depots here in Germany) there are a two really big incentives to purchase from a local seller in Germany:
We have several
federal laws that empower the customer:
1) The warranty laws are extensive and (in short) the seller has to prove within the first six months that the product wasn't defective. After this period the customer has further 18 month period where he can prove that the product was indeed defective from the start (example: a software error that only manifests itself after some time).
2) Even more powerful: Online(!) customers can return ANY purchase within 14 days - no questions asked. You (usually) only pay for the transport.
Note that these laws apply to "business to private" commercial sales, but not to "private to private" Ebay auctions etc.
The OP obviously made use of 2) twice as per his thread starter posting. He stated his reasons and they boil down to the devices being unfit for his purposes.
With a local seller you simply return the item and get your money back. This works 99.9% of the time and the remaining 0.1% will be cleared in your favor given enough time.
Now, a German court verdict form 2013 says that these laws also apply to foreign sellers who specifically offer their products in Germany (like offering them on the German Ebay website, using German language in their offers etc.).
But we all know that there is sometimes a difference between having a right and enforcing a right - and there are indeed surveys that show that foreign sellers don't honor these laws. They either don't know or don't care.
ExampleI casually searched for the Vichy you recommended and there are several sellers on German Ebay for this.
The
first Chinese seller I found who actually has stock in Germany (so no customs hassle), has his own return policies.
In this Ebay auction
https://www.ebay.de/itm/383673976526 he writes:
Return Terms
1. If you receive defective item, please kindly notify us within 14 days. We will guide you the returning instruction for replacement or refund.
2. If you purchased in improper condition, please NOTE that the sipping and handling fee will not be refund, all return shipping fee should paid by the buyer unless item DOA.
3. We reserve the right to refuse any returns for objective reasons.
These conditions are simply lousy for German customers:
1) He shortens the six month warranty period to 14 days.
2) He changes the right to return to "at his whim".
I don't know if these are common Chinese sales terms but in Germany they won't fly with many customers.
Personally, I would never purchase an expensive item from such a seller but YMMV, of course.