If we keep heading down the road of cheap deals through foreign sites, we may see the extinction of the shopping centre in a few years.
Expensive yes, but they provide top quality air-conditioning…FREE! A/C is vital to the survival of many people living in this great land.
Think of the future, think of the externalities that your decisions may cause.
I'll still buy from SOME stores…just not all.
I buy from local stores if they have the pricing similar to or very close to what I can buy from overseas + ship to Australia. Normally local price is still double. So I have to use my common sense here as I have to feed my family as well. I can't just be supporting local businesses.
the prices for many items in australia are too expensive compared to overseas, even if gst was included. if australian prices were competitive people would not be ordering from amazon, etc. and yes, it's probably hard to beat prices direct from china but people buy alot from comparable countries like usa, uk, etc.
this is ozbargain, your argument is invalid.
Your assumption is not actually correct, the minimum wage in US is a lot lower, but in middle incomes and professional incomes the US is at least the same, sometime higher. Factor in lower cost of living, eg home loan interest rates (around 3.5 4 %) and not variable then you argument is somewhat diminished….
even then, the cost here is significantly above the wage difference.
A product i'm looking at is $35 on amazon (and in brick and motar hardware store in the US), but is $90 in Australia. That's a huge markup.
Gerry, is that you…?
Sorry buddy, the wages argument is old, stale and boring. You will get paid less in the US if you do an unskilled job like working at Maccas but how many people do that. My IT job pays more in the US than it does here.
I would be curious what you mean by local.
I personally would not mind if most shopping centres dissapeared.
Does it really matter if you buy direct from overseas, or have someone else do it and resell it to you (at a shopping centre).
I feel no need to assist Mr Lowy. He's doing fine.
I think shop owners are doing far better than those who do jobs. So why do you think I should help shop owners rather than my own family.
I live in a small court where there are only few houses. I am the only one doing a job. When I personally talked to most my neighbours they seem to be owning their own businesses. I am the only one sending the kids to the public school few hundred meters away. According to the school uniforms their kids war, I can guess they all go to the private school couple of km's away which is one of the most expensive private schools in Vic. That's close to 30k for a kid for a year. By doing a good job you can not think of sending a kid to those schools. But having a small shop in shopping centre one can send 3 kids to private schools and pay the full fee. And keep buying expensive cars every year.
If the retail is struggling that much I don't think people can afford for that. I agree that not all shop owners can enjoy this unless you have passed your first few years and the business is well established.
What I personally think is if the retail becomes tough the people who work in those stores will loose jobs or wouldn't get a pay rise. If we all support them enough the workers will get their pay and the owner will buy better cars and have couple of world tours.
This can go either way, bonds for example.
Was made locally than now imported from China, price difference after cheaper supplies and labour? None. Why? Profit.
West fields and Westpoint make huge profits, woolworths and Coles are in the billions and small retailers provide little to no customer support very rude most of the time and I am slowly seeing the Australian local shops to be taken over by other nationalities. Tis isn't a problem, they are giving it a go but at the end of the day they send the money back home to support the big families they have in a much worse economic country.
I try and buy locally when I can, I visit garage sales i buy fruit and veg at the fresh food place not far away from me until I seen the IGA truck pull up and offload produce. I stick to side of the road sales now like Bilpin for Apples etc.
I will buy online with everything I need as I do save money, may not be supporting 'locally' but nor do I support bullion dollar profits.
There is a reason why there will be a new tax on online purchases, you figure it out.
This can go either way, bonds for example.
Yes. When local brands shift manufacturing overseas and shut up shop back home, I no longer see them as Aussie brands worthy of deserving of any extra consideration. From my perspective, I see that only as a medium term solution to profit growth. Once a brand loses its identity, they then have to look at other ways to capture consumer attention. That's difficult when pricing at retail end is no longer the primary consideration for consumer as it's much of a muchness. Quality. ditto. The one area left in Bonds case for differentiation is aesthetics/design choices. The Corporate folks at such companies likely won't the results of their bad decision for years to come - when a tiny mention in the news says of Brand name sell off, cause at the end, that'a all it will have. What a way to lose what could have been enduring.
heh I like seeing ethnic shop assistants, they seem to have a better work ethic and make an effort.
foreigners you mean? Because if by 'ethnic' you mean non-white Australian-borns, then you've not seen enough. I swear, those people can be just as bad when it comes to service.
You don't have to be white to be Australian you know.
I've had bad service/language barrier, but I appreciated they made the effort/tried.
Going into a store that is filled with "Australian bred" is like going to a go slow Union Shop
i'm well aware of that, hence 'non-white Australian-borns'. If you were born here then you would obviously be Australian, irrespective of race. My point was i know some Australians who think being fluent in english gives them the right to diss people of their own race who can't articulate as well as they do.
You don't have to be white to be Australian you know.
Ok, so you're happy to pull the race card Baghern…
Going into a store that is filled with "Australian bred" is like going to a go slow Union Shop
But you've just shown that you're as racist as they come, talk about frickin ignorant stereotypes.
Think of it as 'tough love'.
Unless they shape up and stop being so overpriced, so poor in customer focus, so poor in range, etc. then they are dead men walking anyway.
It's perfectly possible for them to understand what standards they have to hit. They can see the prices as well as us, they can do some research on what is expected with regards their behaviour with customers - if they can't shape up, then they should close down now.
Here's the thing, you get a leeway of 10% over other suppliers, that's it. The reality is you can ship exactly the same product half way around the world, for less money than that shop expects to get away with selling for. That's just taking the p*ss.
I just ordered 10 pairs of CK from freshpair worked out $20 each instead of the $50 DJ asks for. For a few bucks, sure support the local store so it can hire some hot model on expensive contract to model stuff. But for a markup as much as one and a half times? What is the logic?
I'm surprised CK haven't killed this. Other brands have (Hugo Boss). It wouldn't be a deal killer though as Freshpair sell other niche market brands that look pretty good.
I'd feel a little more sympathetic to local retails if they put more effort into providing good customer service and added value in other ways. As it is they make no attempt to do this at present, so I just pick the lowest price as my primary decision making tool.
Agree 100%
Ask Gerry, he made quite a few attmepts to push GST on online purchase.
What an idiot he is. A 10-20% GST premium wouldn't stop folks from ordering OS when the gouging goes over a 100%! I'd shop local if it was only a mere 10 - 20% difference. Assuming you could buy it in Australia anyway. Price not the only reason people buying overseas.
Exactly. If its 10-20% more local I might reconsider purchasing here than OS due to faster shipping from online stores or I can go pick up in a physical store anytime I want, plus the change-of-mind return/refund process would cost so much less compared to sending it back overseas. And depending on some products the warranty is also an important consideration.
And also, Australia post doesn't get paid for delivering parcels to your doorstep, so they offset it from postage. If the ratio of imported goods vs local goods is inverted then shipping costs for domestic retailers are likely to drop as a result. So at the end of the day the pricing has to be competitive as consumers vote with their wallets.
I had a moment a few weeks back where I decided I'd make more of an effort to use local stores. First attempt was a new pair of doc martens. $210!!! I went home and grabbed them for $110 (inc postage) from urban outfitters. $50 extra would've been JUST ABOUT acceptable, but $100 extra? seriously?
And then there was the search for a new laptop… The prices were even more insane than I'd imagined possible and the dudes selling them were all so clueless they were bordering on being retarded.
Fair to say that the experiment is over and it's back to guilt free online shopping for me.
A mate of mine went to buy some Docs the other day…the store wanted to charge him $10 just to try them on, no kidding. They offered to take the $10 off the price of anything he bought, but the tenner was a fee for service in case he got his sizing & bought online elsewhere.
Needless to say, he told them to get f'd… ;)
Some small store, Stewy?
I'm pretty sure he said it was The Rock Store in Newcastle, relatively small by national standards, but somewhat of a Newy icon.
I'm not sure if that practice is even legal, I wonder if anybody else has had similar experiences anywhere?
They had a segment not too long ago on A Current Affair I think where a Lady who owned a Health food/supplements store was charging $5 for people to enter her store. Apparently she was sick of giving people advice and then having them use the information to make their purchases online.
Personally if someone asked me to pay for the "privilege" of entering their store, I would not respond happily and take my business elsewhere.
I hear you - though I can empathise with the owner of the supplements store. I think people should have manners and decency to not seek advice from Retailers they have no intention of buying from. Just Google the information. Or call/email/msg the vendor you're buying from.
isn't that exactly what costco does? (maybe you are like me and refuse to pay the $60 also)
Agree
Why waste peoples time if you have no intention of buying the first place
It's noteworthy that my mate went with the sole intention to buy, but he left empty handed purely on principle. I'd have likely done exactly the same thing.
She should call it membership fee… And that b**sht is magically turned legal.
I don't see the issue here,it's one thing to call up and ask for a price on an item as it usually takes less then 30 seconds but walking into a shop and having a fellow Australian spend 10-15 minutes chatting with you..going out the back to check stock..getting down on their hand's & knee's (mind out of the gutter!) and fitting you up is a different story.
But aren't you entitled to change your mind and not want to purchase an item? I know I've tried on shoes only to find that they were uncomfortable or a poor fit or just not what I was looking for…I'd be pretty annoyed if I lost $10 because of that. I'd never go back either.
I'm sure the shop owner realises it's a risking approach charging people a fitting fee,but when most 'customers' are using you as a fitting service only you then become a service provider more then a retailer so you have to charge as such,i mean what other option do you have? sit back wait to go belly up?
I see your point, but it seems like the options are:
a) continue as is, give great customer service while possibly being used as a fitting service and maybe go out of business to online sales
or
b) charge a fitting fee, almost certainly alienate the small amount of customers that you do have, go out of business quicker
I'm all for supporting local shops where pricing is comparable or reasonably priced, but I honestly don't feel guilty for choosing online when the price difference is huge. I personally would never pay a fitting/entrance fee to a store.
Honestly there are some niche shops that probably shouldn't be in business anyway - if there isn't much demand for the product in the first place, or if the prices are far more expensive than online then it's not really a viable business. These tiny shops rarely hire other people outside of the family (I'm speaking generally, I'm sure there are exceptions) so it's a bit rich to expect charity from your customers.
As a side note, I wonder how the store owners actually find out that their customers have purchased the same product online - surely they don't come back in bragging about the deal they scored off Amazon ;)
They could offer a real fitting service with custom insoles etc to justify the charge. If they charge you $10, then the shoe is uncomfortable, then you've just paid $10 for nothing. Personally, I wouldn't risk even going into a shop like that.
And then there was the search for a new laptop… The prices were even more insane than I'd imagined possible and the dudes selling them were all so clueless they were bordering on being retarded.
Actually if you have a look at Laptop deals listed on OzBargain, you'll find that majority are still Australian stores having a discount. What I found is that for general tech stuff that you buy from Australian online retailer, the price is not too bad when you factor in local warranty, GST and higher overhead here. Occasional sales from brick & mortar stores can also get you some laptop bargains.
However for niche products, the retails would usually want to charge you an arm and a leg for it.
I agree. Popular electronics like CPUs and Video cards can be acquired relatively cheaply in Australia, for perhaps only 10% more in the US. However, esoteric/unusual items (like say sugilite beads or a plastic model of a dragon) cost twice as much to purchase from a local retailer than from Amazon US (This is with shipping included).
I refuse to do business with greedy Australias ripping off their fellow citizens.
But I do support my local retailers. I buy from my greengrocer, I drink coffee from a barista, I get haircuts from my barber, I pay my water bills, I buy from a local online whitegoods shop, etc. etc.
If a large percentage of your income is going to gadgets from overseas, you have too much disposable income or your budget is imbalanced in that direction. For most people those purchases are small in the scheme of things.
As for shoes, clothing, etc. well I'm not going to line the pockets of shopping centre magnates who charge exorbitant rents. Or retailers who need to be bopped with a large Internet clue.
Or it just means you're single with no dependents. Not sure what "too much disposable income" or "imbalanced budget" are.
I agree with the comment about exorbitant rents. However, it's going to suck when retailers close their doors and move their businesses online. I'd much rather visit the store, try on several sizes of different products on, than buy them online, try them on at home, and return those that don't fit. There's no substitute for a physical store.
If anything a family person will spend a greater portion of the income on family needs, rather than gadgets so what you wrote is contradictory. A family person is probably a stronger supporter of local retailers in terms of both faction of income and absolute dollars.
As for the bricks and mortar retailers I think that supporting an uneconomic model is merely hastening their demise. If you want to throw money in that direction it's your prerogative.
I wrote that if a large percentage of your income is going to gadgets from overseas, it might mean that you're single with no dependents. I'm not sure how that is contradictory. As I do not have a family to take care of, I have no idea whether a family person would be a stronger supporter of local retailers, though I cannot imagine why this might be the case. A family will use more in terms of fraction of income because children do not earn money. As for absolute dollars per head, I imagine it would be less as children eat less? I have no idea.
I don't see how supporting their uneconomic model would hasten their demise any faster than not supporting them would. Retailers in Australia are not very adaptive and are likely to perish anyway without support. In any case, all I am saying is that physical stores, however uneconomic, provide a useful service to the consumer. I am not sure what all the factors (rent, wages, shipping, etc) are that result in such high prices, but consumers are the ones who lose out if stores start disappearing. I for one do not buy clothes locally because of the price discrepancy, but moving the business onto the Internet trades higher prices for greater inconvenience.
I wrote that if a large percentage of your income is going to gadgets from overseas, it might mean that you're single with no dependents.
You did not provide this context.
What I'm saying is that people like the OP focus on the obvious cases of business going overseas but fail to note that a large proportion of spending is still not and will never be transferable overseas. Like the examples I gave. That's why I reject the OP's label.
Australia is in the forefront of the wave of change due to the high penetration of Internet. The first casualties are consumer commodities, and retailers of those should take note. On the other hand the most resistant to overseas substitution are services. My barber does not have to worry about Internet enabled haircuts.
If we encourage lazy/greedy retailers in their mistaken ways they will crash harder when they fail. In less words, practice tough love on them.
Australia is in the forefront of the wave of change due to the high penetration of Internet. The first casualties are consumer commodities, and retailers of those should take note.
Retailers are fighting back through Brand corporate support in making it difficult or impossible for OS vendors to ship to Australia. You've probably tried to buy something and found that the vendor won't ship to Australia. It's not possible to buy athletic Asics shoes from US/UK without having to go through eBay. YES, there are ways to circumvent and their are exceptions but in the old days, you just ordered it and it arrived. Now, you've got to really want it. The Asics brand is just one example. I want the old retailer/distributor network to crumble. Market segmentation is a money earner from them.
They've milked Aussies for years with crazy premiums that go well above our wages/shop rents/insurance/compliance costs and whatever else contributes to business - and their premiums have probably contributed to other imbalances in the retail sector. Exorbitant rents asked of retailers for example. There has been an awakening but there is a fight back from retailers thanks to support from Brands like Asics.
Many Australians have discovered how cheap it is overseas and we've become used to buying goods at vastly reduced prices as well as greater choice (for me that trumps dollars). If you take OS shopping away, I think for many Australians, they will rebel by spending less anyway. There will be a resentment towards retailers.
By all means, support and buy local when/where you can. There are jobs to consider. However, retail needs to change also and offer increased choice, better service and make profit by not gouging. Most Australians can accept paying more so long as it is reasonable.
shoes and clothing always going to be a problem US going out we are come into that stock. i keep 69 shoes from USA. that are 180 here still.
When is the time for our local retailers to support us, the consumers?
Yah, it's a symbiotic relationship that good retails should see as an opportunity for growth and loyalty (or at least encourage people to give them first look before going elsewhere). That said, how much wiggle room is there for some vendors when the old distribution networks remain intact? Or Corporate Brands maintaining a local fixed rrp?
AND the local producers (aka manufacturers)..
One example why I buy online and overseas.
A pair of shoes from eastbay are half the price, available in every size, available in every colour / style.
Same pair of shoes bought locally are twice the cost, available in 1 colour, available in 3 different sizes.
Just an example but this usually applies to most products be it clothing, electronics etc.
Expensive yes, but they provide top quality air-conditioning…
so this top quality air-conditioning is the reason i have to pay nearly twice the price for a pair of shoes?
FREE! A/C is vital to the survival of many people living in this great land
yes, may the great overlord grant us the gift of cold air we so desperately need for the next few months… wait what?
sorry but with statements like these you can't really expect anyone to take you seriously.
sorry but with statements like these you can't really expect anyone to take you seriously.
You take anyone on OzBargain seriously??? :o
woooooooossshhhhh!
And imagine if there was a problem with those locally bought shoes. 9 times out of 10 you would have difficulty in returning them and be treated like you were trying to pull a fast one.
Shopping centre will not extinct, they will just evolve eg will have more cafes/restaurants rather than retail shop.
I still support local retailers and shop locally but Internet gives me a larger variety with cheaper prices.
By us ditching the local retailers, I think it is actually doinh everyone a favor. Eg Myers have started to renegotiate with their overseas suppliers to bring their prices more in line with international prices
How about shop online and donate the savings to local charity organisations if you wanna help people in Australia really need help? Shopping locally means more bonuses to those CEOs? Don't blame the players blame the game. This is how it works when internet was first invented and intended for.
The Internet wasn't intended for mindless consumerism. It's intention was to encourage collaborative research, mixed in with U.S Govt requirement for communication node redundancy. Tim Berners-Lee's contributed largely to the Web with protocol design and the first web page but again with collaborative research in mind. None of the pioneers of the Internet or WWW envisaged that it would an outlet for us to spend dollars on product. Just saying…
…and donations to charities are tax deductible :)
internet never hard any retail until 1994 pizza shop was one of first store. it was base around collaborative research in mind.
you can get free aircon at the local library too
supporting westfields colesworth isnt a good idea
here's a good example
i want an xbox game
its $32 shipped, from England, a country that has even higher costs than here
shopbot tells me its $48 to $82 local… not shipped
that's just insane
sure i have to wait but its a game and i'm not the type to line up at midnight for it
Please don't go to your local library for air con….go to Coles or Woolies
Forget the aircon that's too weak open the freezer door infront of the Icecream aisle at Cole/Woolies Thats some nice cool air there.
I do. I have already paid for my next few years of cooling fee to Coles. :)
I prefer to use ebay on my phone while sitting in the free aircon down at the local westfield.
I'm buying smart phone for pretty much this exact purpose.
air con is paid by rent, rent is paid by goods been sold. i would rather not pay for aircon and get my goods cheaper.
if they do that then maybe i wont have to pay for the internet to buy my goods cheaper overseas.
It's shopping centres that originally put a lot of the local retailers out of business in the first place,
plus they are a parking nightmare, you have to walk 1 mile to buy one little thing and they are havens for infectous disease,
I say the sooner they bring in the bulldozers in the better.
I priced a new citizen watch at Brevilles in southland, vic $595, but reduced to $399 had a look around the net and found it in New York for $160 plus postage of $39. I asked if they could do it any cheaper and they came back with $120 plus postage so I brought it.When it arrived it had the retail citizen USA price of $295. Who said we don't get ripped off downunder? I mean what's a fair profit margin.
same experience here. Almost bought a tissot visodate at the Malaysian airport but my gate was closing in 10. Didn't want to make an impulse purchase so i decided to just get it back in australia, thinking 'oh it can't be that much more'. Guess what?
Malaysian retail price ~$400, excluding a 15% discount from the swatch group (tissot is owned by the swatch group). Got back here, retail price $800; didn't even bother asking how much they could reduce it by because it sure isn't going to be $350.
Oh well. Probably time to search for cheap flights again.
heh. I wanted to buy a G-Shock locally - and the local retailer wouldn't budge on price. It was hard set RRP. I bought it online for less then half the price shipped.
Once my wife wanted to by in-styler hair straightener from Target for $119 or $129 (can't remember the exact price). I stopped her and came home. Checked online. Exact same one I bought for $25 including shipping. Only issue was that it had US connector. I bought the US to Aus connector converter for $1.50 from the same place. I don't think Aus connector or the AirCon they have in store cost 100 bucks per item.
Where did you find the hair Straightener? Amazon US?
Dont get me started on watches. I have a collection of mostly swiss autos, close to 10 watches (close as I have one on order that is on its way!) and I havent bought any in Australia. Mate of mine bought an Omega Aqua Terra at the Airport in Japan in Feb, nearly $2K cheaper than the price he was given at the Melbourne shops.
I once bought a Casio watch online (posted in OZB) and shipped under $15. After a year or so it's battery went dead. I went to change the battery from shopping centre the guy asked for $20.
I should have bough 2 last time. I am waiting for another deal on OZB to buy a new one.
After going to NEW York last year see prices in shop clother and shoes and everythink is cheep. i even got a pair of doc 120 that are 300 here and some 69 that are 180 hear now will only shop online.
I'm surprised they didn't just offer the same price that you found on the Internet minus 10%
…nice try, Gerry Harvey
You know, if local retailers had an ounce of respect for the Australian consumer, they'd do everything in their power to provide customers with the BEST possible price with the BEST possible service. The amount of disdain shown by companies like EB Games, who offer GTA V pre-order for ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS is absolutely effing disgraceful. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for them to extort the public like this. The game will cost $60 USD retail in the US. AT THE VERY LEAST, WHY COULDN'T THEY JUST PURCHASE IT AT U.S. RRP AND ADD 20% MARKUP AND PROFIT FROM HIGH SALES TURNOVER???
Too many companies have become so greedy. They profit from the laziness and stupidity of a small amount of ignorant consumers, setting their prices exorbitantly high for no other reason than to make a quick buck, all at the expense of everybody else. There is NO REASON to make a 60, 70, 100, 200% profit on ANY consumer product over $50.
Examples of companies that extort the consumer are EVERYWHERE in Australia. Take for example David Jones with Nudie Jeans. They are the only ones who import Nudie Jeans in Australia, and they charge TWICE the price of any other online retailer. They then BAN any online retailer (c.f. ASOS) from selling Nudie Jeans to Australians. Another example is OPSM and Sunglass Hut. You can purchase a pair of glasses for half the price online, but they make deals with the manufacturer to be the sole distributor of certain brands in Australia, so you HAVE to purchase from them, or buy online.
Screw the Australian local retailer. Far too many of them have been taking us for a ride for far too long.
there are many reasons for that
eg. i know for a fact all Australian sales for many items is often the same as maybe half of one of the larger US states
so if you're a big global company, why would you even bother trying to be competitive with 20 mil people when I have 330 million in the US, 1.2 bn in china… its just not worth their time
so they appoint an exclusive dealer here who pays hefty licensing fees and then you have to add on a layer of local retail, store, rental, staff and then your item that costs $60 in the US is now $110 here…
20% more than US RRP isnt enough to make it worthwhile selling in Australia
one other thing
you guys go on about high prices of luxury items like jeans and shoes and watches… these things will always be expensive here because you really dont need them
australia will never be competitive… our grandkids will be complaining about the same things
so if you're a big global company, why would you even bother trying to be competitive with 20 mil people when I have 330 million in the US, 1.2 bn in china… its just not worth their time
gosh if all companies thought that way, there would be no market expansion whatsoever because 'the local market is enough for us'.
you guys go on about high prices of luxury items like jeans and shoes and watches… these things will always be expensive here because you really dont need them
define luxury. Do you consider levi's jeans luxury? Yet we are paying so much more.
gosh if all companies thought that way, there would be no market expansion whatsoever because 'the local market is enough for us'.
many companies DO think that way
here's an example: Ferrari up until very recently did not sell their cars here directly. They appointed a importer (Ateco).
Ferrari saw that they could better handle their own cars in Australia so they hired their own staff.
Obviously for many products, they dont want to hire their own staff here.
The reality is that big companies often do not think much of 20 million people. If you think 20 mil. people is so important the prices should be the same as 330 mil. people in the US which it patently isnt.
those are very high end stuff which obviously not many people can afford. Considering cars take a significantly longer time to manufacture and only a limited number of luxury cars are produced every year, it makes perfect business sense to not expand into this market if you can get higher sales elsewhere.
But if you consider things like jeans, shoes and watches (as per your original example), these are goods almost everyone owns. Plus they're mass manufactured and therefore should not be priced to give the illusion that the distributors are doing us a favour by importing them here. We already suffer the lack of choice for most imported products, so why should we suffer the price difference as well?
yes but jeans shoes and watches is all about degrees…
brand name jeans are expensive
brand name shoes are expensive
brand name watches are expensive
one thing, australia is generally not a sophisticated, consumerist society
eg. i have an omega seasmaster watch
when i bought it overseas it was $1,250 (this was a long time ago)
here it was $2,000
how many people are interested in a $2,000 watch? Of course places like the US Hong Kong Malaysia where people have a more active interest in watches will have a cheaper price.
At the low end, if you buy Seikos and Citizens the prices are closer. Put it this way, I'm a watch fanatic but i've very seldomly bought watches here because the price and selection does not suit. Does it bother me? No because I know Australians arent interested.
I went into a high end store recently because I was interested in another watch. I knew full well what the price is in the US and yet when I was talking to the guy, he looked it up and the price went more and more ridiculous.
I am willing to pay $2,000 for this model but the AU price went to $3,500, then $4,000… then… i lost all interest as they're obviously taking me for a ride.
This is the way it is.
Well they do this to us for online digital downloads too.
This might have changed very recently, I don't know. But even when the aud usd was pretty much at parity you'd pay 34.95 for a downloadable game from the ps3 Australian store while it was 20 in the us store. What for? Other games like rockband singstar etc song d/ls were more expensive. I think iTunes songs too.
the price discrepancy in iTunes songs can be ridiculous. Songs sold for $0.99 in the US sells for $1.29 or even $1.69 here, representing a 30.3% or 70.7% inflation respectively.
Now movies on the other hand…
take 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' (woo emma watson!), US - $14.99 buy, $4.99 rent; AU - $29.99 buy, $6.99 rent; representing a 100% inflation for buy and a 40% inflation for rent.
'Skyfall', US - $14.99 buy, $5.99 rent; AU - $29.99 buy, $6.99 rent; representing a 100% inflation for buy and a 16.7% inflation for rent.
Don't even get my started on TV series.
Dude. Love the rage. But on the Nudies, pretty sure it's Nudies that are playing a part in locking out OS buying, not David Jones by themselves. I wouldn't buy Nudie anymore anyway. There's better denim for the dollar that's still available to Aussie consumer. Check out Superfuture for what's up.
When it comes to games it is actually the publisher that sets the prices mostly. This is why we often (but not always) pay more for digital downloads of games too.
There are probably similar situations with other products.
I'd just like to point out that the retailers seem to think that 'good' customer service = multiple pushy staff members hovering around you constantly. I personally think that good customer service is just having the staff members polite and easy to find when you need help, and knowledgeable when you've got questions. Also, not trying to upsell everything in the store to me when I'm already making a purchase.
It doesn't help that the flocks of morons get on Facebook and whinge about not being spoken within to immediately when they walked into a store. Yeah ok, you should've been spoken to but did you bother asking for help? Or did you just walk out in a huff to your waiting limo, your majesty?
What I've seen is local shopping centers have already evolved.
They are now a hybrid between leisure centers and perishables retailing. Leisure being coffee, cafes, restaurants, hair,beauty and cinemas, with the odd specialty shop for browsing and impulse purchase.
There are definitely people there, constantly, car parks are capacity all day every day.
The businesses hurting are the retailers still trying to compete with those $2 shops Kmart and BigW.
I'd love to support the local and I do. But you can't ignore cost savings in the order of hundreds of dollars.
All the retailers need to get together and demand that shopping centres start charging reasonable rates. Maybe then, we will start seeing some more reasonable prices at the till.
Hi Ozbargainers,
What I would like to know is for eg a galaxy s3 4g at this present moment is cheaper from overseas direct import market around $409-450 +shipping compared to the $640-677 in retail stores across Australia. What would you consider as a fair price for Australian stock given that there is duties on the goods when they arrive.. What would you expect them to sell it at?
problem is warranty here. overseas unit - 1 year warranty and aus unit is 2 years. and samsung australia will not repair your international phone. experienced it personally. had to send phone back to overseas where i bought it from.
Australia Post is part of the problem. Too expensive.
It is not just supporting the local retailers, by paying the inflated prices you are propping up a broken system. The distributors that signed up for lucrative distribution rights, some before internet shopping was around, the retail landlords and the union award rates. By paying inflated prices you are agreeing to all of that. I feel sorry for the poor shopkeeper that bears the brunt at the coalface but at the end of the day I am not personally a charity for impoverished retailers, I am a consumer.
I hate big shopping centres, overpriced and annoying.If they all went belly up tomorrow I couldnt care less. If you need aircon go and sit in your car or in a waiting room at the doctors. Better still buy yourself an aircon for your house from a local retailer!
We do support local retailers when they offer the best value. Don't you? Why would you pay more to use an international supplier if you could get better value locally?