Local VS Overseas prices

JBhifi has always priced their Beatles library at a high price, as long as we are prepaired to buy at a inflated price because we live so far away from Europe and America they will keep on charging exaubitant prices.
In the words of the Beatles its money that’s what they want

4 Likes

This is why JB HiFi doesn’t get a lot of money out of me. I’m not someone who’s prepared to buy at inflated prices when I can find significantly cheaper prices over the Internets.

3 Likes

If you shop on Amazon US it seem a coincidence that some items offered in the US are not available
at the price the US are paying and the product is not able to be delivered and supplied to customers in Australia. I had to buy a watch for my wife through a private deal on EBay from the US even though the identical item was available to the US on Amazon. The difference in price was $200-$300 from Austrailian Retailers.

3 Likes

Some Amazon merchants or Amazon itself will happily ship to AU, and often Very Cheaply. My last Amazon order was a few jar spoons, unavailable in AU at any price. Shipping was a whopping $USD6.53 and the package arrived in 2 weeks via DHL Global Mail.

Some products are subject to license restrictions from the manufacturer and no agent will transcend or they risk losing their agency for the lines.

For those that are problematic check out reshipping / purchase concierge services such as Borderlinx or similar.

2 Likes

Phil I import fishing reels and parts for same A) my own collection B) to on sell to other collectors . The majority of my purchasers are from the US and I have never paid excessive shipping charges . I would say $14.00 would be the average . It is only when I look at some of the shipping chargers on Ebay that my jaw drops , so to speak .

1 Like

The best way to buy on Amazon US is to go through the process of buying the item and delivery charges and the poor exchange ratethey give you, then work out if it is worth your while to buy and if not cancel before you comit to buy. Sometimes the item is cheaper here on EBay in Australia when you look at the postage charges.

The effects of globalisation and free trade have yet to trickle down. Ha! Maybe the TTP may have had a better response if it had worked for us the people.

1 Like

I wondered if it was just click-fraud. Maybe to see if people would just click express and not even vet the price - what else could it be? I mean, how could any reasonable postage calculator come up with a price like that for a package that was maybe 200 grams and the size (roughly) of a normal envelope? just a mistake? I’m a little cynical. Well a lot actually :slight_smile:

Another ‘gotcha’ with Ebay is the price baiting. Try looking for some items, USB cables are one, phone covers another - they advertise for 1$ delivered but you find that it’s only of you select the accessory only, some dodgy 1$ item - all the actual cables or covers are 8$ or 10$. Nothing on the drop down list that actually matches the item description is available at that price, only some dodgy thing you didn’t search for or want. If you challenge them, they don’t respond. I’ve tried a few. Sand insulates a head well. Ebay does the honey-badger as well … one to look out for.

2 Likes

I priced a specialty scanner (for scanning loose pages double-sided at very high speed with auto conversion to Optical Character Recognised PDF) here in Australia and the cost was $6,600 including GST. I bought the same item on Amazon USA for free delivery to my daughter in NY for A$3000. Her boyfriend brought it back to Australia (20kg) as his second piece of luggage, declared it at customs and they didn’t charge GST. Even if they had it is hard to see why such an expensive item would be twice the price in Australia.

3 Likes

A few years old but it makes your point. We still get “Australia taxed” by so many companies, and yet they bleat if we buy overseas.

4 Likes

I hope it’s some type of system error, and not a con @draughtrider. The price baiting is an interesting issue, I’ll raise it in my next catch up with investigations.

@jepc - thankfully you found the cheaper option! The price difference seems ludicrous to me.

The Australia Tax works no matter which way the products are shipped. I’ve noticed that Australian made ARB 4WD products can be shipped to the US and sold for the same or lower price to the US market that we pay here.

3 Likes

I wonder whether it is a retail markup or a wholesale mark up price difference?
I suspect ARB price the items at the wholesale level the same for all there markets but as Australia has a higher retail margins due to our higher wages and general cost of living therefore the cost to Australian consumer is higher.

Also the GST is added in Australia in the US state taxes (nearly 10% in most places) are only added for domestic purchases.

The other impact on prices is demand for the products. If one has high turnover of stock (likely higher in the US as their market is significantly bigger and also high proportion of modified 4WD) the costs for holding/stocking items are substantially less.

When contemplating the purchase of a new built-in oven a few months ago, I came across this interesting price comparison:–

IKEA Aus:–
VALFRI
Double oven, stainless steel
$1,299
IKEA UK:–
Double oven
VALFRI
Stainless steel
£400

[These words copied directly from the relevant Ikea web pages in January. At the current exchange rate of £1 =$A1.698, £400 = $A679; $A1299 = £765.
Note, incidentally, that these prices include sales tax – UK VAT @20%; Aus GST @10%. 'Nuff said!]

4 Likes

The high shipping charge is not a mistake. It happens a lot on ebay. The last brand new compact disc I purchased from England cost a little over $5 with free shipping. There was an option for express shipping for over $500. My CD arrived in around one week with the free shipping anyway.

4 Likes

Thanks for the info @hitspacebar. What a shocker!

2 Likes

While the cases I refer to below are not strictly Local VS Overseas prices issues it does touch on why we may be paying too much to Overseas companies. It does raise the issue of the Australia Tax where we are made to pay an amount based on our location rather than on what an exchange rate based cost might levy because a company has a monopoly on where you get your apps from…

I have just read an article about Apple being sued in the USA for anti-trust behaviour. The Supreme Court of the US has rejected Apple’s argument that they are just a middleman and so users can’t legally sue them. The Anti-Trust case will now proceed through the lower Courts. The original Anti-Trust case had been started in 2011 and Apple had appealed a decision made by a Lower Court. From the article on https://www.infopackets.com/news/10548/supreme-court-rules-apples-app-price-fixing is this about why the plaintiffs have pushed for the case:

"The case centers on two main differences between apps on Apple mobile devices and those on rival systems such as Google’s Android. The first is that it is virtually impossible to install an app on an iPhone or iPad from a sources other than the official iTunes App Store - something Apple cites as being important for security reasons.

The second is that publishers have to pay Apple thirty percent of the app’s sale price, providing that the app is not being distributed as ‘free’"

To read a BBC article about the case:

To read the Supreme Court decision:

Apple is also under legal fire in the EU by Spotify. Apple charges 30% on both App sales (ie buying the App) and sales through Apps eg if you buy a music subscription through a Spotify App then 30% commission is levied on that purchase.

These cases could affect the pricing models of other App Stores such as those run by Google and Microsoft.

5 Likes

This model is currently $USD1549 (plus tax, usually about 8.5%) in the US shops that translates to $AUD2510 at an xrate of $AUD1=$USD0.67.

Such a deal at this unnamed local merchant. A savings of negative $39.45 against the Aussie RRP of $2999! Shipping is extra. Got to love it! (not really)

5 Likes

Did you notice that at the botton, it states “Our price $3,038.45 inc GST. RRP $2,999.00 inc GST”?

Bargain!

Perhaps it is also a candidate tot the Hard Word category.

1 Like