There have been countless news stories about how the costs of goods sold locally is exponentially more expensive than if you purchased from an overseas online retailer. Whilst retailers are campaigning about adding GST to all imported goods, they are (rightly) being lambasted for focusing on the 10% difference the GST makes when the price difference is much larger than that.
The biggest costs in selling products is the after sales support - anything from warranty support, to meeting consumers' expectations and fitting the vaguely written ACL. Logistic costs of sending replacement goods or parts for repair, replacing customers who return perfectly working products because they changed their minds, etc all add up. A significant portion of our profit margin went into after sales support of our imported TVs.
When consumers purchase from overseas, they know what they are forgoing, and they weigh the risks with the savings they make. The retailers should be campaigning to have the right to sell products under the same conditions as a self-imported product - that way, the government can still collect their GST, and consumers can compare local fully supported products, and quasi-imported products.
Here is a recent comment by the ACCC chairman, basically telling retailers they should raise their costs calculations to meet the new ACL requirements on top of their existing costs:-
"Retailers may need to incur costs to maintain a culture of compliance with the ACL, including by supervision of staff."
What are your thoughts and or any other suggestions?