# Are Australians ripped off by their own retailers? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2012, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496 "2012-05-20T06:31:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TATG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@TATG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TATG)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/21 "2012-05-20T12:11:16Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > And from some cursory reading, I believe Aussies have their own version of Medicare that’s accessible to everybody, so they don’t have to pay for basic healthcare needs like Americans do. Paid through by taxes. > [@rachelellogram](#): > > Things down under cost more because Aussies \*make \*more. Minimum wage only tells us what people on minimum wage make. Note that GDP per capita is lower in Australia. > [@GuanoLad](#): > > Is there a way to adjust it so that it was? I know taxes are different in each country, US Sales Tax and Australian GST are applied at different rates in different ways, but it’s not been fully explained to me what that means in the wallet department. There may still be a major price point difference after all that comes out of the wash, but I’d love some specifics. I’d like an answer to this one, too. Taxes are always going to be tricky, because there is the trade off with paying higher taxes, but less for a service (medical, school for example). My guess is that no matter how you cut it, Australians make less than their US counterparts. If that is true, I’d be interested in the economic explanation for the price differential. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/22 "2012-05-20T12:26:40Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Book prices in Australia seem to be designed to keep the population illiterate or at least ignorant. I coauthored a book in 1984 that was sold in the US for $55 (list, there being no Amazon). I got an outraged letter from an Australian who complained that it cost $175 there. Australian dollars, but that no excuse. Something of the same is true in Canada. I recently bought a printer that was widely sold in the US for something like $110. I bought it at a local outlet of Staples (here known as Bureau en Gros) for $155 and Best Buy was the same. Since the Canadian dollar at the time was the same as or even slightly higher than the US dollar, this made no sense. Books are also at least 10% more expensive here. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/23 "2012-05-20T14:09:00Z")
High book prices are at least partly caused by government interference. One way is the parallel import restriction. > [@](#): > > This is a law that prevents anyone from importing legal copies of books into Australia if the publisher has already released the book into Australian bookstores. In effect, this means publishers can set different prices for their books in Australia than in other markets, without having to worry that booksellers will simply import books from the market where they are sold cheaper. Read more: [Protectionism is the new cultural cringe](http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/protectionism-is-the-new-cultural-cringe-20090927-g7n0.html#ixzz1vQ1mmf78) If I recall, there was talk a few years ago about getting rid of some of the restrictions but it failed. Australian publishers and authors both spoke out in favor of protectionism. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/24 "2012-05-22T02:53:56Z")
Interesting. Thanks for input. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/25 "2012-05-22T03:19:17Z")
After some checking, Australia does not seem to have nearly as high median household income as the U.S. It’s certainly pretty good - a first world nation. But it isn’t as if everyone is just rolling in the dough such that they can afford to blow iit on double-priced imports. The weird thing about this to me is that I don’t see what the government gets out of it. Sales tax? No, people are going to spend roughly the same amount anyhow. Import protection? No, as a (large, spread-out) island nation, imports will be more expensive anyway and there’s not going to be as big a manufacturing base to suffer from competition. So I don’t understand what they get out of, except possibly power (which is usually the answer in cases like this). ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/26 "2012-05-22T03:26:38Z")
> [@Sierra\_Indigo](#): > > Mel Gibson isn’t really ours, so no deal. You could split him; that would be a win-win. 😃 NZ has the same market probs as Oz – or a bit worse. Our dollar isn’t worth as much, so paying a bit more is reasonable and understood, but it gets more than a bit annoying when the prices are artificially inflated. Black Library was mentioned up-thread – Games Workshop (the parent company) have restricted their UK distributors from selling outside the EU to prevent us poor antipodeans buying at (UK price + shipping) which was about 2/3rds (at worst) of local price. As a result I just no longer buy their product. _shrug_ ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/27 "2012-05-22T03:44:41Z")
> [@Girl\_From\_Mars](#): > > Even US retailers are doing it. J Crew recently announced that they are now shipping to Australia and offering 2 months free shipping. What they don’t mention is that their pricing in AUD is much higher than the same item in USD. for instance a wool sweater is around US$70, but AU$90+, where it should be closer to AU$65 with the exchange rate (a similar sweater from say Country Road or Saba would be $129 here when not on sale). I found placing an order via a US reshipper saved me literally hundreds of dollars. I can tell you from experience the cost of shipping internationally to consumers is enormous. Fees that need to get added onto the US retail price: Import Broker Fees Duties Domestic Shipping to Consolidator/Service Company Intl Shipping Taxes (could be left to consumer depending on country) J Crew uses a company called [FiftyOne.com](http://FiftyOne.com) that actually handles all of the ordering on the web and the export and international shipping (I don’t work for J Crew or FiftyONe). J Crew has to pay to get the product to FiftyOne and then they have to pay FiftyOne to get the product to the consumer (typically via DHL) and handle all of the import documents and fees etc. A $20 increase is not at all out of line with the costs behind the scenes and J Crew is probably eating a little bit on that one compared to a US sale. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/28 "2012-05-22T04:07:12Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > I can tell you from experience the cost of shipping internationally to consumers is enormous. > > Fees that need to get added onto the US retail price: > Import Broker Fees > Duties > Domestic Shipping to Consolidator/Service Company > Intl Shipping > Taxes (could be left to consumer depending on country) But is it not true that the original destination for the stock isn’t the USA but China(or Vietnam or Bangladesh or wherever). Why do goods imported from China to the USA cost a lot less than goods from China to Australia ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/29 "2012-05-22T04:12:08Z")
A few of the major retailers here were recently having a whine to the goverment about the amount of sales they were losing to online or overseas sellers and wanting some tax restrictions removed. The response was, essentially, “deal with it”. I can often import book to Australia from Amazon or the Book Depository for around half of what it costs to buy in a shop, and that includes shipping. Apart from the need to have it that day (and my Kindle takes care of that), why would I bother buying here? ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/30 "2012-05-22T04:22:03Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > I can tell you from experience the cost of shipping internationally to consumers is enormous. > > Fees that need to get added onto the US retail price: > Import Broker Fees > Duties > Domestic Shipping to Consolidator/Service Company > Intl Shipping > Taxes (could be left to consumer depending on country) > J Crew uses a company called [FiftyOne.com](http://FiftyOne.com) that actually handles all of the ordering on the web and the export and international shipping (I don’t work for J Crew or FiftyONe). J Crew has to pay to get the product to FiftyOne and then they have to pay FiftyOne to get the product to the consumer (typically via DHL) and handle all of the import documents and fees etc. > A $20 increase is not at all out of line with the costs behind the scenes and J Crew is probably eating a little bit on that one compared to a US sale. Will the price increase disappear when the 2 months free shipping deal is over? ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/31 "2012-05-22T04:39:17Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > Will the price increase disappear when the 2 months free shipping deal is over? I can’t imagine they would drop prices after the 2 months. I’m guessing their 2 month deal is an introductory offer to let people know they are shipping internationally - which means they are eating even more cost now than they plan on for the long term. Most likely, after the two months the prices would be the same but the consumer would have to pay for shipping. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/32 "2012-05-22T06:17:21Z")
The price of any retail good is simply determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it. If Australians don’t like the price they are welcome to not buy the item. Plainly they don’t have much of a problem with it. If overseas suppliers can make more money selling their wares for a lower price (i.e. make it up on volume), what’s stopping them? ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/33 "2012-05-22T06:27:48Z")
The costs for commercial shipping (business to business) may be different, but the costs for Australian consumers buying from o/s retailers is very simple: Imports under AU$1000 in value (shipping included) are **free**. There are **no** fees, **no** taxes, **no import duties of any kind** for imports under AU$1000 in value. So any excuses about the cost of importing things into Australia are _very_ unconvincing to any Australian who’s actually checked the rules of importation. I don’t know whether it costs businesses more to import merchandise than it does individuals - I expect it does. But I have real difficulty imagining that the cost of shipping a container full of stuff to Australia adds up to double or triple the US retail price. Australia is closer to China than the US. Shipping fees on a container ship are low. Maybe warehousing and transport costs are higher here than in the US. I’m sure they are, in fact. But there is quite simply no _believable_ reason that I’ve heard that explains why the exact same items cost double or tripe here compared to the US price. 10 to 20% more? That’s believable and acceptable. 100 to 200% more? Fuck the fuck off. And no exaggeration, 100 or 200% more is _standard_ in Australia for the stuff I know the most about buying: musical gear. Australian musicians _ **love** _ internet shopping, I can tell you that for sure. Retail prices _have_ dropped a bit here in recent years due to the impact of internet shopping. They’re still significantly higher than US retail, but _some_ gear has dropped from the standard 2.5 - 3 x the US retail that _all_ musical gear used to be a few years ago. Some stuff is closer to 1.5 x US retail now, which to Australians looks like a massive bargain. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/34 "2012-05-22T06:29:47Z")
> [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](#): > > If Australians don’t like the price they are welcome to not buy the item. Plainly they don’t have much of a problem with it. Try talking to an actual Australian about it. We are fucking **outraged** at how seriously we are ripped off. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/35 "2012-05-22T08:36:16Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > I don’t know whether it costs businesses more to import merchandise than it does individuals - I expect it does. But I have real difficulty imagining that the cost of shipping a container full of stuff to Australia adds up to double or triple the US retail price. Australia is closer to China than the US. Shipping fees on a container ship are low. Maybe warehousing and transport costs are higher here than in the US. I’m sure they are, in fact. I would reckon it would actually be cheaper to ship to Australia as people are concentrated in large coastal cities. Shesh! half the population live in Sydney and Melbourne alone. What proportion of Americans live in New York and Chicago?. Furthermore, they are closer to the Asian manufactures, and way closer to Asia then the East Coast of the USA is. The minimum wage is higher, so I guess the cost would be raised by higher staffing costs for warehouses, but still… does that really make up a big proportion of the cost? ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/36 "2012-05-22T09:18:14Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > I can tell you from experience the cost of shipping internationally to consumers is enormous. > > Fees that need to get added onto the US retail price: > Import Broker Fees > Duties > Domestic Shipping to Consolidator/Service Company > Intl Shipping > Taxes (could be left to consumer depending on country) > J Crew uses a company called [FiftyOne.com](http://FiftyOne.com) that actually handles all of the ordering on the web and the export and international shipping (I don’t work for J Crew or FiftyONe). J Crew has to pay to get the product to FiftyOne and then they have to pay FiftyOne to get the product to the consumer (typically via DHL) and handle all of the import documents and fees etc. > A $20 increase is not at all out of line with the costs behind the scenes and J Crew is probably eating a little bit on that one compared to a US sale. Perhaps I wasn’t clear - that $20 markup is pre-shipping costs - the shipping costs are additional and we pay for the duties, shipping, taxes etc. We have no issue paying for shipping, recognizing that it is more expensive to ship. What it irritating is paying more for the goods simply because of our location, which the retailer acknowledges is because they think they can charge more since our local retailers charge so much more. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/37 "2012-05-22T10:29:04Z")
**Sierra Indigo** already mentioned Games Workshop and the Black Library, but it’s worth pointing out just how low they will stoop. Until this time last year, it was perfectly possible to buy their products from the UK at half the price of local retailers, with free shipping. Then GW decided to forbid all independent retailers from selling outside their own country. You could still buy from GWUK’s own online store, albeit without discounts and without free shipping, but then they jacked up their shipping charges. Now even a single 12mL pot of paint, shipped to the Oceania region (i.e. Australia, New Zealand or Japan), will see you slugged with a _sixty pound_ shipping charge. To add insult to injury, the CEO then spouted some blatant lies, blaming their trade embargo on non-existent Australian tariffs instead of their own greed. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/38 "2012-05-22T11:23:40Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Try talking to an actual Australian about it. We are fucking **outraged** at how seriously we are ripped off. Are we though? I will look on the internet for cheaper prices for some things but others I’ll pay whatever it costs provided I want it enough. Presumably there are enough people like me to keep the economy going. I’m much more pissed off about 20% increases in the price of electricity. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/39 "2012-05-22T12:57:32Z")
…when Lightroom 4 was released to completely disparate prices to the US, a contingent of NZ and Aussie photographers basically invaded the Adobe ANZ Facebook page and kept posting until the price went down. This was the initial response from Adobe: > [@](#): > > Adobe delivers mission-critical software to creative professionals. Our pricing methodology takes into consideration the costs of doing business in different regions and customer research that assesses the value of the product in the local market. Conditions vary between markets and it’s difficult to make a straight comparison between countries. After a week of keeping the pressure on: the pricing issue became a “mistake.” > [@](#): > > Last week our Facebook community helped us identify a pricing error for Lightroom 4 on the Adobe Australia and New Zealand online stores. This error has been fixed and the pricing is now correct. The NZ price came down from about NZ $230.00 to about $125: still 25 dollars more expensive than the US version (after taking into account the different value of the dollar), but still massively cheaper. > **[Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/AdobeANZ?filter=1)** (Scroll down to about 12th of March) So the solution is to really just keep the pressure on and eventually the price will go down: especially on things like digital downloads. My hats off to the photographers who helped bring the price down! ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496/40 "2012-05-22T13:35:19Z")
> [@Girl\_From\_Mars](#): > > the retailer acknowledges is because they think they can charge more since our local retailers charge so much more. Isn’t this like, the foundation of supply and demand? It’s not always as simple as merely thinking they can charge more, it’s that they \*have \*to charge more. There’s been a lot of economic research showing that consumers ascribe more intrinsic value to higher-priced items, regardless of quality. Pricing items lower may not only obtain lower per-unit profit for a business, but may \*also \*decrease the number of units sold (especially in the case of luxury goods, like designer jeans). Market price for luxury goods literally has almost nothing to do with the amount an item costs to manufacture (except insofar as the manufacturing cost will assuredly be lower than the market price). The customer’s ability to pay is _absolutely_ relevant to the price of goods, in Australia and everywhere else. Higher ability to pay = higher prices for goods. Businesses are not charities, and they have no obligation to give consumers lower prices. Suppliers will only sell at lower prices when a lower demand forces them to. I’m seeing a lot of moral outrage over this that lacks an economic basis. Wholesalers and retailers will charge as much as they can get away with in any particular area–that’s good business sense. The \*only \*way this is going to change for Australia is if the country as a whole decides to boycott higher prices. Which means it doesn’t matter if you or your whole neighborhood decides to stop buying things with x% markup. It only matters if nearly everybody in the country decides to stop buying them. Aussies like **Richard Pearce** are collectively responsible for higher prices (not ascribing blame, here, just using him as an example). People might bitch about how expensive things are, but it doesn’t matter \*unless \*they stop buying expensive things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-australians-ripped-off-by-their-own-retailers/622496.md?page=3)