Basically you will have to pay more if you are in the EU and want to buy and ship a product (Like the Axe) to the EU. Here are the charges you will incur:
1. Exchange fee. You'd have to buy it in US Dollars. If you only have Euros you'll lose a small amount on transfer fees - say by Paypal or other. It shouldn't be that much, probably between 1 to 3% (I think AMEX charges 5%). In my experience, even banks or exchange houses that say they charge no fees ALWAYS have some fee (or they alter the exchange rate to their profit). So there will be some small percentage paid upon changing currency.
2. US Sales Tax - as discussed in previous posts on this thread - that's normal
3. EU Customs Fees - Here in Germany, the Zollamt (Customs Office) will charge you a customs fee. This varies according to item.
4. VAT - In Germany it's MwSt. (Mehrwert Steuer) - 19% They cannot wave this even though you have paid american taxes already. The argument is that due to the possibility of reselling, they have to charge this. So you're double taxed.
5. Don't forget Shipping Cost
I got lucky through a loophole in the import laws. I bought an Axe FX II Mark II two years ago. I ended up saving a bundle on it. I paid the full american list price, but I saved myself almost all of the above fees. After you get married, you have a time limit (I think it is 6 or 8 months) in which you can have wedding gifts sent to you free of customs and VAT.
That's exactly what I did. I bought the axe w a credit card and paid it immediately - (no interest, and since it was in dollars, no exchange fees). I had it sent to my Father who reduced the packaging somewhat and sent it to me (I think we used US Postal Service - UPS would have cost a fortune). I had my dad include clearly marked that it was a wedding gift including a note inside. It was delivered to my door. A couple of weeks later I got a letter from customs saying I had to pay a fee. ...gave them a call, they seemed not to know about this wedding gift rule, but after a few minutes of looking it up, they dropped the fees.
All in all, I ended up saving about 1500 US dollars. That's about how much extra it would have cost at the time. That was around 1000 Euros in 2013.
So if any of you EU guys or gals are getting married...