I need to buy a Toshiba 860 EVO HDD for a family member so I Googled it yesterday and received a hit from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B078DPCY3T
I selected it and proceeded to the checkout and selected my delivery address and I then received a message containing the following.
"We are unable to ship non-digital items from amazon.com to Australian shipping addresses.
Please choose a shipping address that is not in Australia to proceed. Some restrictions may still apply depending on the item.
You can also visit Amazon.com.au to access millions of products for delivery to Australia."
I clicked on the Amazon.com.au hotlink and entered the product details only to be presented with a page of offers, one of which was over $870.
I can’t understand why the Amazon page stated the shipping cost to Australia only to later state they don’t ship “non-digital items” to Australia or how they classify a HDD as a non-digital item.
Fortunately, our son-in-law is currently working at Newmont’s head office in Denver and asked whether we wanted him to bring anything back with him this weekend.
Thanks for nothing, Amazon.
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I believe they class digital items as downloads such as video and games.
As for why they do that, a lot of people forget that Amazon is a huge corporation. They exist primarily to make profit, and region locking their store and forcing us to pay higher prices is just another way of doing that.
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I have experienced the same thing countless times with Amazon to the point I don’t click on any Amazon links unless it is to look at reviews. They display every indication they will send you something right up until you go to pay for it, then shoot you down in a ball of flames. It’s just frustrating and a major time wasting exercise.
In most (all?) cases the pricing on the Australian site was way out of proportion even factoring in freight, exchange rate and GST. We bought a pair of Bluetooth speakers from Amazon.com delivered for AU$200 inclusive. The same speakers were on Amazon AU for nearly $800. . .Talk about price gouging.
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Amazon backs down on their rip-off policy.
It looks like reality has caught up with stupidity.
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Amazon backflips on decision to block Australians from shipping goods from US store
Amazon previously said it was too hard to collect GST. I wonder what made it easier?
It seems this change relates only to Amazon direct sales not third party sales which are still too hard.
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Nothing made it easier. Region locking was never a GST issue. Australia isn’t the only country with GST on online goods.
Region locking allowed them to charge far more for the same item in Australia because we’d have no choice but to pay it.
Having said that I can see why third party sales might be tricky.
Which countries that charge GST (or equivalent tax on sales by another name) did Amazon service from the USA before we applied GST to overseas purchases?
I mean apart from the USA themselves here’s a list of countries that charge GST/VAT. I’d have to check each individual one to tell you which ones include imports but I’m certain some of them do https://www.ey.com/gl/en/services/tax/worldwide-vat--gst-and-sales-tax-guide---rates
Also remember heaps of online stores still sell to Australia. So the idea that one of the world’s richest corporations can’t figure out how to add 10% at checkout for Australian addresses is laughable
Same here. I’ve stopped even trying to shop on Amazon, and will actively avoid their Australian presence.
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