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This isn't a joke thread, a recent contest specifically the Forgeworld one excluded them. Plus, the pricing for Australia is way above and beyond what it should actually be even when compared to places like Japan. It's cheaper to buy Games Workshop miniatures in Japan than it is in Australia.

They know what they did!

Short answer is - They don't, they're just following a trend set by most retailers in Australia.


Long answer - Back in the 90s, our dollar was worth about half of the US dollar. So imported stuff was expensive. And we import just about everything.

When the Oz dollar started creeping up, before internet shopping was really a widespread thing down here, importers kept their calculations for local prices the same... So imported stuff stayed expensive, even though it was costing those importers less.

This isn't exclusive to GW. Most importers do the same thing, although since internet shopping started to become more popular and more and more people staretd discovering how much cheaper they could buy stuff directly from overseas, some companies have made an effort to close the gap.

GW has made some moves to do the same, but they've done it by freezing our prices and raising everyone else's to a similar level, rather than by lowering them here. And books are still twice as expensive as overseas, which I believe is partly due to the cost of shipping (because they're heavy, and come from China via the UK) and partly due to some stupid tarifs that are applied to books in Oz.



Some people also try to point to our higher minimum wage as a reason for higher prices. ie: We get a higher wage, so we're all better off, and can afford higher prices.

What this argument overlooks is that our high cost of living means that people on minimum wage are unlikely to have money for what GW are peddling (a full-time minimum wage job won't even cover house rent in a large chunk of the country) and our average income is actually about on par with the US... because while the minimum is higher, professional salary-earners tend to be paid about the same or less than they can get for the same work overseas.

So, in a nutshell - GW's pricing isn't because they hate us. It's because they stuck with an outdated rate of exchange, because everyone else was doing it.

As for our exclusion from the recent contest... no idea on that one.

As I recall, Australia also has some pretty hefty import taxes in addition to the factor which Insaniak pointed out.

Essentially, its not completely GW's fault or doing. It is within their power to change, but they won't do it.

83 dollar codex is still about half to a full days wage depending on where you work

On top of cost of living hard to justify that for a fairly mediocre book

 Grey Templar wrote:
As I recall, Australia also has some pretty hefty import taxes in addition to the factor which Insaniak pointed out..

Around 15% on toys, from my digging around a few years back (10% GST and a 5% tariff on toy imports) ... I would be surprised if that's too much more 'hefty' than, say, importing the same goods into the US.

Joke answer: Australia is full of convicts and criminals and assorted riff raff

(Apologies, I Had to say it; we now return to the serious business of the topic)

Maybe they've got everything...
*puts on sunglasses*
upside down
YEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Mick Dundee wrote:"that's not an import tariff, this is an import tariff!"

I'm glad I found this thread. Otherwise I would've probably won and never noticed, since all my FW emails are filtered out to a separate folder I never check...

Reading about this in the FW competition thread, it looks like Australia hates Australia.
There's some set of laws that only sanctioned or registered competitions are allowed, per state/area/district/thing.
I'd heard about the problem with pokies (sp), but laws like this look a bit overkill.
It's not worth a company's time to register with them all, or some-such, so Aus gets left out.

The other stuff with GW, that's out of order.
And taxes, or so I hear.

The clincher is, there's that much more of a disparity between the price of GW and other games.

I guess if there are areas with GW stores only then it won't be an issue, although you can't imagine their sales are very good when you have GW products next to other ranges in an FLGS.

That international order ban thing from years ago was an absolute PITA. It was obviously intended to ring-fence the Aus and NZ market, but it basically black-balled all of asia at the same time. I had about £200 on an Orc and Goblin army on order from the UK when that came in which had to be cancelled, and there were no gaming stores where I was living (well, just the one but it would have meant a flight and a weekend away to get there). I did end up discovering Infinity as a result though (basically looking for something to spend my money on), so every cloud and all that!

 Skinnereal wrote:
Reading about this in the FW competition thread, it looks like Australia hates Australia.
There's some set of laws that only sanctioned or registered competitions are allowed, per state/area/district/thing.
I'd heard about the problem with pokies (sp), but laws like this look a bit overkill.
It's not worth a company's time to register with them all, or some-such, so Aus gets left out..

If GW choose to not make the comp available in Oz because local laws would require the comp to be (a)not a scam and (b) fair, that says far more about GW than about Australia...

 Skinnereal wrote:
Reading about this in the FW competition thread, it looks like Australia hates Australia.
There's some set of laws that only sanctioned or registered competitions are allowed, per state/area/district/thing.
I'd heard about the problem with pokies (sp), but laws like this look a bit overkill.
It's not worth a company's time to register with them all, or some-such, so Aus gets left out.

The other stuff with GW, that's out of order.
And taxes, or so I hear.

Keep in mind, there's not that many states/territories that this would need to be done in. Its not like america with 50 of them. Australia has like 6 states and 2 main territories. Meanwhile, from earlier in the "win a space marine's height" competition i had the impression that states in america had similar legality issues to the running of the competition.

GW hates you because you have wombats. Also, Tom Kirby lost his first wife to Paul Hogan (ran away with him, not murdered by him or anything), so anything associated with Crocodile Dundee earns his eternal wrath. Do not mail him a copy of the CD trilogy. Just...don't. Rabid animal frothing at the mouth and all that.

It is not that it's Games Workshops fault here, you see it is expensive to do retail trade in Australia, a few pointers.

1, Australia has one of the highest per SQ MTR rentals in the world, it costs a fortune to rent a shop and then add fittings.
2, Australia has the highest public liabilities in the world. Insurance coverage is a factor.
3, Australia has one of the highest minimum wages in the world. This is then set in Government legislated Award Wages.
4, Australia is on the of the most expensive countries with utilities costs (water, gas, electricity) although it has recently gone down of late it has not been passed onto consumers.
5, Australia on average has mark-ups in the retail sector of between 75% to 375% to similar product overseas. GW is on average about 78% and so it is the lower end of the spectrum.
6, Australia has one of the most expensive couriers services in the world, this is based on fuels prices, insurance etc.....

Now onto some subjects that are mention.

1, Books are expensive to import, but that is based on weight, books are covered under Customs Tariff Schedule 3 as Tariff Free
2, Scale models related products GW is 28mm scale are covered under Customs Tariff Schedule 3 as Tariff Free.

These are Tariff Free due to having Free Trade agreements with other governments of trade blocs, also in most part we don't have local manufacturers that would be affected and so incur no tariffs.

I hope this explains some points.

P.S Competitions such as the one GW (FW) had are legislated through Australian State based Lottery Agencies, this is to stop fraud in competitions.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Do not mail him a copy of the CD trilogy. Just...don't.

That actually sounds like a good protest idea

 Achaylus72 wrote:

5, Australia on average has mark-ups in the retail sector of between 75% to 375% to similar product overseas. GW is on average about 78% and so it is the lower end of the spectrum.

If that's true, it's gone up considerably at some point. GW used to be around 30%, which is absurdly low, and one of the reasons many stores choose not to stock them, why discounts tended to never be more than 20%, and why so many independent stores that built their business entirely around GW sales tended to not last very long.

 insaniak wrote:

 Achaylus72 wrote:

5, Australia on average has mark-ups in the retail sector of between 75% to 375% to similar product overseas. GW is on average about 78% and so it is the lower end of the spectrum.

If that's true, it's gone up considerably at some point. GW used to be around 30%, which is absurdly low, and one of the reasons many stores choose not to stock them, why discounts tended to never be more than 20%, and why so many independent stores that built their business entirely around GW sales tended to not last very long.

Exactly

Actually, it looks like I misready your point... I thought you were talking about profit margins, rather than mark-ups compared to overseas prices...

So ignore what I just said.

The thing is, regardless of whether they're over-charging by less than other businesses, we're in a situation currently where independant stores are ordering product at retail from overseas for less than they can get it at wholesale from GW here in Oz.

Which is absurd.

 insaniak wrote:
The thing is, regardless of whether they're over-charging by less than other businesses, we're in a situation currently where independant stores are ordering product at retail from overseas for less than they can get it at wholesale from GW here in Oz.

Which is absurd.

And that's GW's issue, not our minimum wage.

Meanwhile, in Norway, which I'm pretty sure has a higher minimum wage than Australia (£15 or $30 AUD*), and 25% VAT, a Wraithknight costs £65 (~$99 USD, ~$127 AUD) at GW retail prices.


(I picked the WK at random, and after looking it up on the Australian site I realized that it's randomly way cheaper than most other GW stuff in Australia, being even cheaper there than in Norway, but in Norway only codices are randomly more expensive (£32, despite no VAT) while everything else is approximately 10% cheaper than in the UK.)


*Norway doesn't technically have a minimum wage, but in practice it has. It's complicated.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
The thing is, regardless of whether they're over-charging by less than other businesses, we're in a situation currently where independant stores are ordering product at retail from overseas for less than they can get it at wholesale from GW here in Oz.

Which is absurd.

And that's GW's issue, not our minimum wage.

And it all makes sense if you ignore the (relatively new) ability for customers to easily purchase products from retailers in other countries. GW products just happen to be at a very sweet spot that purchasing from overseas is actually worthwhile (where possible).

Actually, it isn't really anymore. With the exchange rate back to 0.78 USD instead of the 1.12 we enjoyed for a while, purchasing from overseas isn't neary as lucrative ... if it gets any worse, people from the US will be buying from Australia!!

That's the reason the embargo came about - too many people in other countries buying from cheap UK retailers that offered free shipping.

You can still get good deals, but usually only on bulk orders. Still, some things are cheaper here. Look at the plastic clampack characters (the more recent ones). They're double the price that they were when they first came out, in the US that is, but they haven't gone up on Oz.

The most recent Harlequin ones are cheaper here than in the US. The plastic Warhammer Chaos Lord is US$25 and AUD$25, and while it may look it, that's not the same price.

GW hates you (Australia) because it finds Marsupials to be icky, the Platypus to be confusing, and it doesn't understand how you manage to keep from falling off the bottom of the earth.

MB

Probably because every living thing in Australia wants to kill you. Watch out for drop bears, look up, stay alive.

I really like that Australia can serve an example of faulty economic logic on the part of social justice warriors.

This bear futher looking into.

Raising minimum wage increases your income dollar-wise, while inflation maintains your same relative wealth.

Something the more liberal parts of the US should remember.

There are many reasons things are more expensive. Like the UK electronic goods are more expensive that the US. It's not GW, there is some systematic issue, and like the UK I asume it is complex. As for the competition? It sounds like Australian law makes it far to complex. Why would they specifically exclude one country?

jamesk1973 wrote:
I really like that Australia can serve an example of faulty economic logic on the part of social justice warriors.

This bear futher looking into.

Raising minimum wage increases your income dollar-wise, while inflation maintains your same relative wealth.

Something the more liberal parts of the US should remember.

And yet Australia has higher quailty of life, higher standard of living on average, lower iniquality and longer life expectancy. That or cheaper toys? I know which I would chose.

Also IIRC there are a number of other factors as well, including a massive economic boom due to mining over the past decade or so. Aussie minimum wage today is something like $14 AUD, which is about $11.50 in today's USD. In 2002, $14 AUD was more like $7.50 USD.

EDIT: Basically it's my understanding that the numerical price of stuff in Australia is broadly in line with what one would expect, it's just that the value of the Aussie dollar has skyrocketed recently.

jamesk1973 wrote:
I really like that Australia can serve an example of faulty economic logic on the part of social justice warriors.

This bear futher looking into.

Raising minimum wage increases your income dollar-wise, while inflation maintains your same relative wealth.

Something the more liberal parts of the US should remember.

I don't believe inflation in Australia has been higher than the US, at least not in the last 30 years or so. In the end I think it mostly means there are more people working for around minimum wage in Australia because you can comfortably live off it (though not excessively live off it) where as in the USA I don't think there are as many people working at minimum wage, mostly people still living with their parents. My US mates earning a bit over minimum wage were really struggling to make ends meet, most people in Australia I know living on minimum wage get by fine though they might not have enough money to burn on things like wargames.

Obviously there's areas in various cities where earning minimum wage in Australia you wouldn't be able to survive, people on minimum wage tend not to live there

Overall our crap jobs are better paid but our good jobs are worse paid (though still enough to live comfortably) compared to the USA (relative to the cost of stuff).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RatBot wrote:
Also IIRC there are a number of other factors as well, including a massive economic boom due to mining over the past decade or so. Aussie minimum wage today is something like $14 AUD, which is about $11.50 in today's USD. In 2002, $14 AUD was more like $7.50 USD.

EDIT: Basically it's my understanding that the numerical price of stuff in Australia is broadly in line with what one would expect, it's just that the value of the Aussie dollar has skyrocketed recently.

2002 (or the early 2000's) was an all time low, it was well a decent amount above that going back to the 70's and it's been a decent amount above that since.