|
it's not an official boycott, but what Gerry's been whinging loudly about is the fact that people have discovered that his prices are absurdly high and have been shopping elsewhere, mainly online.
Australians have been ripped off in many sectors of retail for decades. Books, software, electronics, sporting goods, even clothes - levi's cost about 2-3 times as much as in the US. In the old days people used to buy a lot of stuff on overseas trips - i remember the long lines at duty free shops with people buying TVs - and that was back in the CRT days! Now that internet shopping exists and is becoming more widespread, people are taking to it in droves. The old excuses about shipping costs suddenly don't seem to exist for individual customers, which is counter-intuitive.
Books specifically are also subject to parallel import laws, which means if a local publisher picks up the rights then bookshops have no choice but to sell that version, even if it's 2 or 3 times as much as overseas. So bookshops have been bleeding heavily to Amazon and Book Depository.
|