Australia's dying retail consumer market

[Rowan]

Okay lets start by having a look at this. This is the price of the new surfacebook , microsofts first ever laptop. It specs are quite amazing and i'd love to purchase one. Heres it he price from the American site.

USA price.jpg

Seems fair for the quality of the machine, maybe if anything, just a little bit steep. Now lets check out the Australian price for the exact same model.

AUS price.jpg


Umm, sorry? an extra... $800 for the exact same machine? Are you kidding me? Fair trade, alert!
I realise that our dollar is not worth as much as the US at the moment, but if prices of items were based on such a thing, they would need to fluctuate daily and accordingly; and they dont. There could be no tax justifiable enough to put an $800 increase on the same product. I remember a summons Australia held for certain manufacturers in regards to this issue, I believe nothing came from it though.

So could someone explain to me why we are getting shafted? Tax is an easy answer, but in this case I feel tax could not be $800 worth on a $1499 price tag.

I also feel I should extrapolate. This issue is not new, its been happening for a long time and not just with big corperations. Everything in Australia costs far more than what it does most places overseas, which is why our retail is doing very badly and has been for a long time. Everyone purchases what they on online sites from overseas and using sites like ebay instead of buying from local retailers. This is because it is far cheaper to do so.


Edit:
Here is the article about the summons I was talking about earlier with the responses from representatives of apple, adobe etc on why they charge Australia more. It makes my blood boil.

LINKAGE

[Heartless Angel]

With a straight conversion from AUSD to USD it should be about 2070 for you. So you are getting shafted, but not quite by 800.

[Rowan]

With a straight conversion from AUSD to USD it should be about 2070 for you. So you are getting shafted, but not quite by 800.

Thing is though, the dollar fluctuates constantly and if thats how prices for things are determined, shouldn't prices change accordingly? I just dont think they would change the price at all if say our dollar was to match the US dollar within 6 months (not likely, but for example).

[Alpha]

There is more and better retail competition in the US, and US consumers are more likely to buy at big sales (think Black Friday). Going on the assumption that Australia is like the US, the simple fact is for an online price (for a good supplied only by approved partners, like this laptop) to be competitive, it only needs to be around the same price as bricks and mortar stores, as they are the only alternatives. In practice, with economies of scale and no need for parking lots and shopping trolleys, the online price will probably be lower, but it will not be much lower, because if it was, it would just be eating into profit.

If you're in market to buy one (and only one) apple, and are offered identical apples at $2.00 and $1.90, you'd probably go for the $1.90. Why would the seller of that apple price it at $1.00 when they already have the lowest price and the other guy can't go below $2? The arguments in that linked article are sound. The Internet may make America and Australia feel closer than ever, but they are still very different places. The prices just reflect the highest level of profit for the seller. The difference is fundamentally just one of competition and consumer attitudes.

And don't buy Microsoft. And use a parallel importer, that's how I get all my electronics. the Nexus phone isn't even for sale in New Zealand otherwise.

Case in point:

"Mr King said Apple was not responsible for setting these geographically different prices and, despite them, prices in the Australian iTunes Store were "similar" to prices charged in Australian retail stores."

This suggests to me that as physical retail competition gets even worse (which it is), the prices are actually going to get worse for many types of products.

[Heartless Angel]

No, if anything they'd base a price on a trend, compared to their reasonable expectation for how long that product is going to stay on the market. They may just be jacking the price higher because they expect the AUSD to devalue at a faster rate than the USD in the future, effectively preparing for any depreciation before it happens.

Even if they aren't, they'd still be setting a baseline based on exchange rates. What would you expect, for them just to pick the same number regardless of exchange rate? 1500 yen and 1500 euros have a distinctly different value that has to be considered if you're pricing products for an international market. Exchange rate certainly doesn't account for all of the difference, but it's definitely relevant to consider the fact that you're looking at different units when comparing numbers.

Also, don't buy ANY prebuilt machine. Build your own PC or GTFO.