Aussie goods are overpriced

[moXJO]

I pay ten times the price on certain quick change drill bits, carpenters pencils and other assorted bits and pieces in Australia. And if you think its quality- well a lot of it breaks after very minimal use or is rubbish. Buying in bulk from the U.S saves a fortune. Material for the job is also expensive here. Everything seems to be very well priced in AUS

 

[disarray]

yeah retailers have been complaining the last few days that online sales are hurting their business as the strong aussie dollar and minimal transport costs have made online buying from overseas sources a viable option. the retailers are pushing for a change to tax law which currently allows overseas purchases under $1000 to be exempt from GST.

i understand australian businesses have to pay a raft of taxes, employee wages, super and the like, but a knife i was going to buy in the shop was $350 but i got the exact same thing off ebay for $180 with free shipping. i'm all for buying australian and check the "made in" labels when i go shopping, but half price really is a lot of money saved.

 

[Julia]

Ah, one of my hobby horses. Every week there's some Australian bleating about how we need to 'buy Australian', 'support Australian businesses' etc.

OK, fine, but only if they provide a competitive product.

It even extends to food. Incredibly enough, there are often fruit and vegetables available in major supermarkets flown in from overseas, the quality and price of which is much superior to that of the Australian equivalent.

 

[UBIQUITOUS]

I pay ten times the price on certain quick change drill bits, carpenters pencils and other assorted bits and pieces in Australia. And if you think its quality- well a lot of it breaks after very minimal use or is rubbish. Buying in bulk from the U.S saves a fortune. Material for the job is also expensive here. Everything seems to be very well priced in AUS

Not only are Aussie goods overpriced, and I can understand the reasons why, what I cannot abide by is the price of 'made overseas' goods priced in AUD. Looking that the pricing, you just wouldn't think that the AUD is at 27year highs against the USD, and other currencies!

 

[El Tigre]

Not only are Aussie goods overpriced, and I can understand the reasons why, what I cannot abide by is the price of 'made overseas' goods priced in AUD. Looking that the pricing, you just wouldn't think that the AUD is at 27year highs against the USD, and other currencies!

cost of labour. We need a Mexico.

 

[UBIQUITOUS]

cost of labour. We need a Mexico.

We've got Mexico. It's called South East Asia yet still there is no change in prices to reflect the strong AUD.

 

[gordon2007]

Not only have australia been overpriced on good but also services, groceries and everything else. For about 150 years too. It's sad that it's practically inbred for us to always pay more than america.

Forget about exchange rates, think about how much a litre of milk is (a quart in america) and compare to our price. Do the same thing for bread and other basic items.

American buy petrol by the gallon, which basically 4 liters. Theirs is heaps cheaper than what we've paid. Even will the dollar where it is at the moment we still pay more.

What we need is competition.

 

[Smurf1976]

So where are the best places to buy things from overseas and get these huge savings that I'm apparently missing out on? (I mean specific websites etc, not countries).

 

[noco]

Not only have australia been overpriced on good but also services, groceries and everything else. For about 150 years too. It's sad that it's practically inbred for us to always pay more than america.

Forget about exchange rates, think about how much a litre of milk is (a quart in america) and compare to our price. Do the same thing for bread and other basic items.

American buy petrol by the gallon, which basically 4 liters. Theirs is heaps cheaper than what we've paid. Even will the dollar where it is at the moment we still pay more.

What we need is competition.

The reason why Australian goods appear over priced is the result of union demands for higher wages, incresed annual leave, leave loading, long service leave, penalty rates, 9% superannuation, shorter working hours and heaps more applied to the cost of goods manufactured in Australia over the past 5 decades.
America subsidises many of their industries and I doubt whether China and India offer their workers the same conditions applying to Australian workers.We will soon be buying food including milk from Asian Countries if the Government allows it to happen and that may well happen to control inflation. So what happens to our farmers down the track. At least we will be saving water from irrigating. Solution found to save the Murray/Darling Basin. Buy more food from Asia.

 

[noco]

So where are the best places to buy things from overseas and get these huge savings that I'm apparently missing out on? (I mean specific websites etc, not countries).

Log on to E-Bay. You can buy almost anything on E-Bay and cheap as well.

 

[joea]

Log on to E-Bay. You can buy almost anything on E-Bay and cheap as well.

Australia is called the lucky country.
You are lucky to pay more.
The business's in Australia have a mark up pecentage, that they are entitled to mark up their goods. Depending on how popular, they go to the max. or
a little lower.
This is called competition. Or making a living, or making a killing. Take you pick.

If you can buy a carton of coke(30 cans ) for ($17), why do people pay $2.50 or more.
Well, because they have a job, money coming in and they feel like a coke now.

The Australian people have to wake up a little and get a deal. The quicker they do it the better. Then some of the business will fold, and the smart business's will prosper.

I have two son's who work over seas. One in South Korea on a two year contract. One in Goro, New Caledonia, fly in fly out.
Wel, I can ensure you they know how to buy thing cheap. By ebay or online.

What Australian's do not understand is, how cheap life is in other parts of the world.

I can assure you we are being conned. But's what new, we have been copping it for years.

Cheers.

 

[nioka]

It is interesting to note conflicting opinions here on ASF. The general opinion says that the banks are not conning us but the Aussie producers that have to compete with overseas cheap labour,often child labour, and production subsidies are ripping us off. Some expect Aussie standard of living but buy goods produced by the worlds poor and oppressed.

Double standards??????????

 

[joea]

It is interesting to note conflicting opinions here on ASF. The general opinion says that the banks are not conning us but the Aussie producers that have to compete with overseas cheap labour,often child labour, and production subsidies are ripping us off. Some expect Aussie standard of living but buy goods produced by the worlds poor and oppressed.

Double standards??????????

I understand that sun glasses have a 2000% mark up on some brands.
Made in Australia, means the bits come in and they are screwed together.

Banks... When I started work I thought the banks were good guys because they gave me a loan to buy a car.
Now I know they are a necessary evil!!!!!

What the Australians do not understand yet, is the buyers should be in control. The business's supply a service.!!
Cheers.

 

[Smurf1976]

It is interesting to note conflicting opinions here on ASF. The general opinion says that the banks are not conning us but the Aussie producers that have to compete with overseas cheap labour,often child labour, and production subsidies are ripping us off. Some expect Aussie standard of living but buy goods produced by the worlds poor and oppressed.

Double standards??????????

If it is a manufactured household product then the chances are very high that somewhere on it will say "Made In China". That being so, it seems a bit strange that the exact same item is apparently being sold at double the price simply because it went via an Australian, rather than overseas, retailer.

And of course there's always the really silly ones. Like fruit grown in Qld costing more in Brisbane than it costs in Perth. Like Cadbury chocolate costing more at a supermarket in Hobart within walking distance of the factory than it does in Darwin. Australian made clothing that is cheaper to buy in the US. A lot of examples like that, and none of them make any real sense.

As anyone outside the major cities will be aware, "freight" apparently costs an outright fortune in this country. We can ship things around the world at less cost than shipping them across Bass Strait. We can road freight from the farm to any major city at minimal cost, but it costs a relative fortune to freight manufactured goods in the opposite direction. And it costs even more to freight the very same farm produce a far shorter distance to local stores than to take it 1000km to a city.

Scale would explain some of it, but I'm still trying to work out why it only works in one direction. Ship from Melbourne to Bell Bay (Tas) and it costs a fortune. Ship the other way and goods produced in Tas end up on the shelves in Melbourne or Sydney cheaper than they are in Tas, such that the cost of shipping would seem to be negative. All sounds a bit sus to me...

 

[nioka]

Scale would explain some of it, but I'm still trying to work out why it only works in one direction. Ship from Melbourne to Bell Bay (Tas) and it costs a fortune. Ship the other way and goods produced in Tas end up on the shelves in Melbourne or Sydney cheaper than they are in Tas, such that the cost of shipping would seem to be negative. All sounds a bit sus to me...

Freight to and from Tassie is subsidised one way but not the other. I used to ship a lot of cattle from Tasmania and the freight was highly subsidised from Launceston to Melbourne. but not from Melbourne to Launceston.

Retail selling here is controlled by monopolies. For instance it is cheaper for the small retailers to buy Cocacola from woolworths by the can than it is to buy direct from the wholesale Coke deliverer by the carton. Once the big retailers get control over suppliers they are worse than the banks at screwing customers. Take petrol. We had cheap fuel while they were sending the small servos to the wall but now with the $AU at record highs and fuel should be cheaper still we are paying increasing prices.

The thing to remember though is that Australian incomes have always had a cost of living base so in most cases incomes are adjusted accordingly.

 

[noco]

Australia is called the lucky country.
You are lucky to pay more.
The business's in Australia have a mark up pecentage, that they are entitled to mark up their goods. Depending on how popular, they go to the max. or
a little lower.
This is called competition. Or making a living, or making a killing. Take you pick.

If you can buy a carton of coke(30 cans ) for ($17), why do people pay $2.50 or more.
Well, because they have a job, money coming in and they feel like a coke now.

The Australian people have to wake up a little and get a deal. The quicker they do it the better. Then some of the business will fold, and the smart business's will prosper.

I have two son's who work over seas. One in South Korea on a two year contract. One in Goro, New Caledonia, fly in fly out.
Wel, I can ensure you they know how to buy thing cheap. By ebay or online.

What Australian's do not understand is, how cheap life is in other parts of the world.

I can assure you we are being conned. But's what new, we have been copping it for years.

Cheers.

Australia is called the lucky country??????????? 50 years ago I heard that saying, but oh my how things have changed.It is now lacking leadership to steer the country back to where it was in 2007. I really do think we should drop that saying.

 

[Wysiwyg]

So where are the best places to buy things from overseas and get these huge savings that I'm apparently missing out on? (I mean specific websites etc, not countries).

Smurfelous, personal experience was 'importing' a metal detector 2 years ago when gold was around US$900 / oz. and a search on the internet brought up a huge discount after freight & tax for a metal detector. Prices shown below. $1200 in australia versus $600 (what i paid then in aussie $). Also e-bay has bargains galore if one is "savvy" to what they are looking for.

* present day prices.

 

[Wysiwyg]

It's the wages employers have to pay (due to union / workplace agreements and other suck jobs) that make things expensive comparatively to other countries. A Chinese worker does his hours for US$10 per day. We don't make things in Australia anymore! It is increasingly cheaper to make them in Asia and ship them here. Why pay an Australian $30 an hour when you can pay someone else $1 an hour to do the same job?

 

[boofhead]

Some of it is caused by consumer attitudes. People see smaller upfront costs so they buy it. Later they will moan about the lack of quality sometimes. Then a better quality producer may feel a need to reduce product costs so they start to produce something of a lower quality. Once that starts it is hard to reverse. There are short term gains but longer term losses.

Unfortunately Australia hasn't learned much from places like Germany.

They side of it is to look at how many people are employed in full supply + retail chain for smaller retailer that often can't compete on price alone. Sometimes paying slightly more can lead to better overall economic health.

All that does not excuse how Wesfarmers and Woolworths can control supply and even producer prices.

Another thing to look at is the economies you're comparing to, stability and other issues.

 

[nioka]

It's the wages employers have to pay (due to union / workplace agreements and other suck jobs) that make things expensive comparatively to other countries. A Chinese worker does his hours for US$10 per day. We don't make things in Australia anymore! It is increasingly cheaper to make them in Asia and ship them here. Why pay an Australian $30 an hour when you can pay someone else $1 an hour to do the same job?

Will YOU work for me for $2 an hour?. That is TWICE what you seem prepared to pay.No? then I guess you have had "suck" jobs all your working life.