Quote:
Originally Posted by murg
After I wrote that, I did think of the GST. But Collins (the distributor) is paying the GST on their cost, which will be somewhere in the 30% to 50% of the retail price (the Canadian price).
Import costs are relatively minor. Since the units are coming from Taiwan/China, it shouldn't cost that much more to ship to Australia, even if they are air freighted (the product doesn't weigh that much, and airfreight will be under $5/pound ($10/KG)).
The higher wages thing is a furphy. Collins doesn't have that many people dealing with the product (roughly equivalent to the people needed to handle pbooks). There is no real marketing in Australia.
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I guess so. I was just mentally running through the usual reasons given for Australian pricing. Don't forget, too, that our disposable income is generally higher in Australia than other Western countries, which often comes into play with Australian prices.
It's different with different products, though. I work at one of the larger electronics retailers in Australia, and our cost prices (incl. GST) are sometimes more than the cost of importing identical units from US retailers (freight and all).