Australians are ripped off - that's why online buying is good!

Ten years ago I came to Australia from Europe. I was shocked that many imported goods are sold in Australia for double the European list price: Electric switch gear, electronic parts as well as books. But it's not the distributors in Australia who make the big margin - the overseas corporates keep the big money.

It is easy to check: All suppliers who provide 60% price reduction for Australian companies have 200% list prices. It became my hobby to cross check Australian prices with European prices to get a fair deal for my company and not just a European discounter price.

But normal Australians are still ripped off buying these products.

A manager of a German company told me once: "Why should we not sell the products double priced if Australians are that stupid to pay it?"

That is slowly changing thanks to the internet and online business.
The Australian retailers should not scream about it but demand fair prices from their overseas suppliers!

If a book has a $35 adhesive label on it and below it shows the UK price of 13 UK Pounds then it is clear why Australians buy books at Amazon and not in the shop. But the business seems to prefer to stick to their high price policy and send their shops into liquidation.

For the first time I was able to buy books at Angus Robertson for a fair price this week - 50% administration discount - the next ones I buy online again.

In Australia books are a luxury - in Europe not.

Is ACCC telling us these facts? No.

No fair go for Australians.

Don't be stupid!

Compare prices!

Get a fair deal!

Or buy online.

i like books
mainly because to print thenm out costs even more

[lets not forget the printer ink scam]..where these specific...and tiney little cubes..cost more than a litre of ol fashoned toner]

in store my printer cartRAGE..costs 130/150 bucks
on line..via e bay...buy now...
the last ones cost me 25 each

[ok one only got 600 copies...
an other only got 1200 copies]

so clearly they divide the product by weight...
and im only getting 'cheap'..cause they obviously were lighter weight

also i like second hand books
you cant beat $3 bucks a bag
or even 50 cents to $2 bucks a book

online bying isnt a cure/all
[my first purchase of the toner caertRAGE..got over 3000 copies
then with my bulk order i got the 'other'[and then my printer froze up]...

wether it was the 'cheap cartRAGES'...well..who knows

we are being ripped off online as well as in our power bills
going 'online'..dont allways offer the same price in the same area
[computers are too 'clever'...they can divide us into our local postcode specific prices]

Agree we buy regularly off ebay and also direct from overseas suppliers...

we have been caught once on a electronic microscope, where the software did not work that well... but apart from that we have been happy with all the purchases... and pay 25% - 30% the aussie price which, when buying bits and pieces at around say $600 - $800 aussie comes in as a big saving.

Yes Chris.Just a few days ago my Toshiba laptop battery spat the dummy.Battery World quoted $179.00 and online $49.00.Both have 12 mth guarntees.

It's not just the price, it's the range of goods that are available on the global market that make it attractive to me.

There are many things that are simply not available in this country that can be bought with a mouse-click and delivered to your door.

As long as many of our businesses are happy to send their manufacturing or our jobs off-shore, I'm quite happy to follow their example and look out for my own interests as well.

What your all forgetting is our extreme rental prices in Australia.
I think you'll find most shops would lower their prices if they weren't paying through the roof for the shop front. Everyone knows that Australian property is some of the most expensive in world.
How else do you cover these repayments?

Dan makes an excellent point about shop rents; and I'm amazed that nothing has been done about this- as it is a parasitic practice that ultimately hurts the economy as less business is done and less people will take the risk to set up new businesses- and that an otherwise popular self-supporting business is still liable to collapse because the building owners were more greedy than the business could afford to uphold.

But to reply to the thread- I too am thankful for online shopping- it means when local retailers get too greedy- we aren't forced to either do business with them or do without.

Dan-the-Man Rental prices exist in a market.... if fewer people wanted to lease space in Shopping Malls and Street Strips the prices would fall... or the investor will go without the benefit of rent....

don't blame rents for high prices, they may be a minor contributor. A major contributor is, with 23 million people compared to approaching 300 million in USA, the market economics of local variations (eg 240 volt power supply and different regulations) are real barriers to price viability (- I know we have to check any time we buy electircal that the transformer is multi-voltage)

Books online are a winner for me, if I'm prepared to wait. I like the Book Depository - free shipping and great prices, though a bit slower than Amazon (or so I have found).

Not that long ago, the patriot in me would have paid the high prices in Australia. Then a few things happened.

I discovered that I can count the number of proper bookshops (and by 'proper' I mean offering a range of books - not just specialist books, second-hand books or Christian books, of which there seems to be an abundance) in Townsville on one hand, and the number of decent bookshops on one finger. Even that decent shop only occasionally comes through with the goods.

I also needed two books for a course I was doing earlier this year. I shopped around and discovered that I could get them for a total of $95 (give or take a few cents) plus shipping from Australian suppliers, or $40 (give or take a few cents) with free shipping from overseas. Being keen on having a couple of dollars left in my account at the end of each pay period, I took the latter option. I haven't looked back.

The only downside, I've discovered, is time. Ordering books for birthdays requires plenty of forward planning, as I've discovered they can take up to a month to arrive. I suspect the delay is at this end, too: things seem to move rather slowly up the Bruce Highway to North Queensland, and even slower within Townsville. I'll tell you another time about the letter from my real estate agent that took 6 days to travel less than 20km across town ...

I would also recommend The Book Depository. After placing an order, I have my book(s) in 7 - 14 days, around half the price we pay here and free postage. Also, they take more care than Aussie online book shops ie the books arrive properly packaged in perfect condition, not like Angus and Robertson.
Another recent item was a spare battery for my Sony handycam. Sony and Ted's wanted $199 while ebay had it for $13.87 from China. Considering Sony probably sources its batteries from China, why the difference?

With a Kindle I get new books in a few minutes and at about half the paper copy price (and with a much lower carbon footprint). If purchased through Amazon I can download the book again in the future if I should ever need to and storage is a breeze.

R0bert