Australian technology tax -- worst culprits

[Renai]

hey everyone, I'm starting this thread so that people can post examples of the worst pricing markups on technology goods and services for the Australian market. My personal bugbears right now are Lenovo (specifically, the X1) and Adobe, but I've also heard stories about incredible markups on cameras and other consumer electronics. As a gamer, the gaming issue also gets my goat -- particularly on Microsoft Xbox Live.

So let's hear -- what's the worst you've paid -- and where?

[trib]

Anything from Adobe. Their pricing is criminally high in mark up terms.

Thankfully, there are now a bunch of cheap, high-quality alternatives to most of their bloated crap.

Apple, OTOH, has closed the gap and is much closer to parity US-AU these days.

[poedgirl]

Well, as I commented on the main site, Saints Row the Third on Steam. US$49.99 there or US$89.99 here (notice both have the same currency). I did also make a post about this nearly 2 years ago on my blog: Australian Price Gouging*|*Rants of a Psychotic Developer

[bug1]

Might be more useful to try and point out companies who dont charge us more.

I was in charge of getting some laptops for family members for a xmas present, saved heaps by getting someone in the US to go to a Best Buy shop and carry them back, it still would have saved money if they had had to pay import duty.

A random check i just did was to look at HP online prices, if you compare prices from their online store for Australia (Welcome to HP Online Store) to their normal online store which i had to find via google, you find;

A basic model HP Pavillion G6 is AU $499, reduced from $599.01 at HP Australia online store.
If you do the same on their normal site the basic model is US $399, reduced from US $499.99, plus they give you an extra 1GB of memory.

So 25 percent markup for being Australian plus you miss out on another $20 or so of ram.

Another disadvantage is that we get very limited product lines in Aus, if you buy in US they have a lot more different models so you can get exactly what you want.

[Renai]

We've seen the Saint's Row problem you mentioned a few times now -- I think it was a similar pricing issue which resulted in Portal 2 being sold in Australia at almost double the price. It really pisses me off -- enough so that I usually don't buy games at full price these days, unless they're manufactured by Blizzard

[Dean Harding]

It's not just technology. I bought a pair of Nike shoes while in the US for US$80, came back to Australia and the exact same shoes are $160. They're all shipped from the same factories in China, so why it would be twice as expensive to ship to Australia is beyond me.

[voradams]

Well I just got Corel Painshop Pro Photo X3 from Amazon. $US30, compared to $109 at Software Express. I can, and have, accepted x2 markups, but I cant see how local retail can cope with x3 price difference

[leneuromancer]

pfff, the real raping occurs on things like motor vehicles...

Porsche 997 (911) Carrera 2S Coupe - USD $91,900; AUD $270,172,
Porsche 997 Turbo S Coupe - USD $137,500; AUD $449,856

BMW M3 Coupe - USD $58,900; AUD $168,145
BMW X5 xDrive50i - USD $63,800; AUD $145,820


..and it goes on and on! (bicycles, furniture, clothes, deodorant, lettuce)

Now I understand that putting a steering wheel on the other side cost a few $$$, and that shipping all the way down-under costs a few bob more too, add in some Duty, LCT, etc ...and I still feel violated!

[comrade]

annual msdn subscription cost approx $4.5k AU, while in the US it's approx $2k US. think we'll just use a US mail forwarding address for our next renew & buy it from amazon.

[comrade]

Re: leneuromancer (# 8)

agreed 100%. interestingly, there are some local forums where people discuss importing high end sport cars from the UK. still got the GST, but still cheaper than buying from a local dealer.

as for the bikes, furniture & clothes, ebay, op shops & patience has been my friend. as for plasma & projectors, factory seconds (with warranty) has been my friend (1/2 price than retail). okay, it's not new, but its cheap.

[comrade]

would also add the jb-hifi blu-ray movies tax. some of their 2 for $20 deals aren't too bad, but mostly you're better off buying from amazon.co.uk with their free shipping deals (& excluding vat).

[Evil Bob]

Epson large format printers have a 100%+ tax for Australians. Epson 4900 is USD$1495 from a reputable US store and cheapest i've seen in Australia is AUD$2907 ex GST. Same goes for the Epson 7900, USD$2999 and in Australia it's AUD$5995 ex GST.

[Renai]

Epson large format printers have a 100%+ tax for Australians. Epson 4900 is USD$1495 from a reputable US store and cheapest i've seen in Australia is AUD$2907 ex GST. Same goes for the Epson 7900, USD$2999 and in Australia it's AUD$5995 ex GST.

That is actually a shocker. Will have to follow up with Epson about this.

[Renai]

would also add the jb-hifi blu-ray movies tax. some of their 2 for $20 deals aren't too bad, but mostly you're better off buying from amazon.co.uk with their free shipping deals (& excluding vat).

I tend to get my movies on bulk rental from Quickflix rather than buying them per se.

[Renai]

annual msdn subscription cost approx $4.5k AU, while in the US it's approx $2k US. think we'll just use a US mail forwarding address for our next renew & buy it from amazon.

Another shocker. I will be following this one up.

[Evil Bob]

Both NEC and EIZO also like to apply an AU tax to their monitors. NEC PA241W USD$949, AUD$1840. Eizo CG241W USD$1789, AUD$2790. AU prices include GST.

[markmimage]

This is absolutely shocking, and I would like to see more of us band together and let our voices be heard, so I started a facbook page, check it out and voice what you think is a total ripoff here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-...594342?sk=wall

[TenguTech]

Online shareware registration sites don't seem to understand that the exchange rate has changed.

Often they default to displaying the price in your local currency (based on your IP address) rather than US$. Of course if you change back to display in US$ you will find the price is much cheaper.

There was a product I look at registering on esellerate (owned by Digital River Inc).

The standard US$ prices were: full version $20, upgrade $15
But the prices displayed in AU$ were: full version $35.50, upgrade $26.75

About a 83% premium for paying in Australian dollars.

I have seen other Digital River places with similar price discrepancies.

Kagi also seem to charge a premium for paying in local currency, though not quite as big.

Now, while the dollar value discrepancy is not quite as high as others mentioned, the ratio of the discrepancy is about the same. And it is for a digitally distributed product.

If you are in the know you can change the value back to US$ and save.
But its not something the average user is likely to try.

[ApfDaMan]

I have to say i am impressed with Dell, i havent checked any of their other products but prices for their IPS monitors which i am interested in are usually the exact same eg. ($399 US and AUD)

the u2711 and u3011 are even 100 bucks cheaper!

[comrade]

I tend to get my movies on bulk rental from Quickflix rather than buying them per se.

i considered this, except most reviews show people waiting a while for availability of a bd they want to see. another case for getting them offshore is that they may sometimes be released sooner than over here, & this is good if you want to flick 'em off on ebay afterwards.

Another shocker. I will be following this one up.

msdn premium visual studio = $9.5k au or $4.5k au renewal. the package was not originally priced like that, but msft being as it is, changed aspects of the product thus demanding a higher price. unfortunately, some of our projects still require msdn/msft products, else i'd shift everything to linux.

I have to say i am impressed with Dell, i havent checked any of their other products but prices for their IPS monitors which i am interested in are usually the exact same eg. ($399 US and AUD)

the u2711 and u3011 are even 100 bucks cheaper!

they have great priced ips monitors & regularly have 20% discount deals. last year I got 2x 27" ips for $800 each (incl 3 yr warranty). that said, stay away from dell laptops, nothing but trouble. some won't accept clone batts or chargers.

[TenguTech]

Download Windows 7 Professional 32/64bit for students

• From the Australian store $119.00
• From the USA store $29.99

Over 3 times the price for a downloaded product.

See the OzBargin listing for full details.

[gekkonaut]

Hey guys,

I just banged this out over the weekend: ripAUff.com

.. I had the idea quite a while ago, but after seeing this thread, I actually got the motivation to do it!

Lots more ideas and work required - but the biggest thing it needs at the moment is data. So if you've got more of the above, please add them

Features under development: Moderation mechanism (for price confirmation), historical charts, exchange rate history, scores factoring in GST, etc.

[Tubsta]

Canon batteries

[cas]

Hey guys,

I just banged this out over the weekend: ripAUff.com

.. I had the idea quite a while ago, but after seeing this thread, I actually got the motivation to do it!

nice idea but the HTML is awful. The listings are unreadable unless you use an element inspector in your browser (and/or the Stylish plugin) and fix the broken styles. I'm not saying it needs to be pretty or fancy or be some javascript-filled monstrosity - it just needs to be *readable*.

1. lose the "width: 500px" in #content. really, specifying sizes in pixels for *anything* except images is ... "broken" is the politest i can put it. specify width or max-width in % if you must, but not in pixels. pixels don't even mean the same size on two different monitors. better yet, let the viewer decide how wide they want the list to be by adjusting their browser window.

2. have you never heard of the HTML TABLE tag? it's perfect for this kind of thing. one might even imagine that it was created just for presenting tabulated data like this.

e.g. start with something like this:

<TABLE>
<TR><TH>Product</TH><TH>AU price</TH><TH>US price</TH><TH>Markup Multiplier</TH></TR>

and then, for each item, instead of this:

Apple -
Macbook Pro 13&quot;
(8,3) |
AU$1399.0 |
US$1199.0 |
1.167

Do this:
<TR><TD>Apple - Macbook Pro 13&quot; (8,3)</TD><TD>AU$1399.0</TD><TD>US$1199.0</TD><TD>1.167</TD></TR>

and finally, end with </TABLE>