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Fenriswulf wrote:

For the outsiders who don't live in Australia, you really need to drop this whole "but you get paid more per hour!" line because it's both getting old and also wrong.

Minimum wage in the UK isn't that far below what it is in Australia anyway.

suggesting we should start living on a smaller minimum wage just so international companies can choose to sell their products to us cheaper (which they won't) is just offensive. Sorry mate, but we actually give something of a damn when it comes to the standard of living in Australia, and recognise that paying bargain basement prices for labour is neither smart nor good for the long term. Companies, no matter how much they say they will, won't ever drop their prices for goods just because the local wage goes down.

To date I have never come across a product that became cheaper once the manufacture of it was moved to a low wage country like China or India. All that happened was that the company made more profit which they kept to themselves and their financial backers.

Superscope wrote:I don't understand how GW can actually enforce this when australia is PART of the british commonwealth...

Why would that make a difference? These days, being part of the Commonwealth means we get to participate in the Commonwealth Games... and that's about it. The Queen is still legally our head of state, but beyond that government is completely independant.

Fenriswulf wrote:Also, consider that our stock is not boxed and shipped from the UK, nor is it manufactured here, which could account for the higher prices. Instead, it's made in China and boxed in Australia by low wage workers in factories (in an agreement with organisations for the mentally handicapped to give them work that can be done easily, so they aren't paying the best wages here as far as I know).

No idea on where it's boxed up, but GW minis are not made in China. Hobby supplies are sourced from Asia, and there was a rumour that the Space Hulk minis were cast in China, but regular miniature production (aside from Forgeworld's brief dabble with China) has so far stayed firmly in Nottingham and Memphis, and Australia is supplied with a mix of stock from both of those plants.

Especially since Games Day and grand tournaments are no longer being supported in Australia any more.

Games Day started up again last year. No tournament support is correct, though... although that's not just confined to Oz these days.

don't forget that Forgeworld IS Games Workshop as well

and they don't charge location, location, location prices

one price for anywhere in the world

GW hypocritical or what.... FW logical, GW greed

for now anyway

Mik

Lord Castellan Mik wrote:don't forget that Forgeworld IS Games Workshop as well

and they don't charge location, location, location prices

Most likely because FW items aren't generally available on the shelf here, so they don't feel the need to adjust to match the local prices... There aren't any.

The Black Library, on the other hand, feels that Australians should pay twice as much as the rest of the world for eBooks downloaded from the same UK website that everyone else gets them from, because they want their books priced in line with the gloriously failing Australian book market. God knows why.

cadbren wrote:New finecast thunderfire canon.

Based on prices from the GW site.

For those in the USA it will cost $56

For those in Australia it will cost $94

Currently the US and Australian dollars are about the same so those prices above represent the actual price difference.

Why are Australians expected to pay almost $40 more for the same product?

The same reason we pay $90-$110 for new video games, $30-$40 for bluray movies, $539 for the new base model iPad, etc.

Companies are charging us at the same conversion they did 5 years ago. The problem is the majority of Australians either don't know, or don't care, that the exchange rate has practically reversed in the last 5 years.

-Loki- wrote:The same reason we pay $90-$110 for new video games, $30-$40 for bluray movies, $539 for the new base model iPad, etc.

Companies are charging us at the same conversion they did 5 years ago. The problem is the majority of Australians either don't know, or don't care, that the exchange rate has practically reversed in the last 5 years.

People don't know, don't care, or can't be bothered shopping online.
Regional pricing is a good thing for most companies, because people in some regions are richer than others. You see it absolutely everywhere. A grocery store or petrol station in a 'rich' suburb will have higher prices than the same store running in a 'poor' suburb. One city will have different prices to another. Its all about using all the 'consumer surplus' - the money you don't care about.
At the moment, Australians are 'richer' than the Brits, due to the massive way the currencies have shifted in the last few years. But, to the average Australian, they are no more wealthy than they were before. Everything still costs the same price, and they earn the same amount of money. So why would a company suddenly reduce their prices massively to a consumer who had no reason for a price decrease? Australians are still paying approximately the same % of average wage on GW products as Brits do.

As cadbren said earlier:

To date I have never come across a product that became cheaper once the manufacture of it was moved to a low wage country like China or India. All that happened was that the company made more profit which they kept to themselves and their financial backers.

Excepting in this case you're achieving higher margins due to conversion rates than cheaper manufacture.

However, as more and more consumers become tech-savvy, more people start trusting online shopping, and if they're looking at the right products with a specific set of constraints, then we see a shift away from B+M retailers to online stores. The constraints include:
1) Can you wait for the item to get here? Do you need it right away, or will it spoil?
2) Can you be bothered to wait for the item? How much delay is worth the saving you get?
3) Are you getting exactly the same item? Or is the international version slightly different, or the warranty doesn't work internationally? Can you legally or feasibly get it here?
4) Is the sum of the shipping fees and waiting time less than the amount you save?
5) Is the amount you save a significant amount of money to you? Is the amount of money you save a significant portion of the product price?
and often 6) Do you feel that purchasing where you are was bad value for money regardless of knowledge of other regions prices?

GW products, clothes, books, cosmetics, portable electronics all fall into these categories, and thus we see people buying them online.
Cars, groceries, whitegoods, plumbers, houses all don't fall into these categories, and thus we don't see people buying them online.
So the issue is companies using artificial measures (embargoes, ridiculous shipping costs, artificial regional prices) to get things from one category to another and the ACCC is right to investigate and put a stop to it. Imagine trying to go to a grocery store in a 'poor' suburb, and they check your drivers licence and charge you according to where you live rather than the prices on the shelves!

As the article shows: its not a GW problem, its an industry wide problem, which is exacerbated by the (relatively) high Australian wage and rent prices meaning that stores can't stay afloat even if they dropped prices to 'reasonable' levels. Is there a solution? Toughen up and get with the times? The suggested GST floor decrease would do very little to stop the issue, given we're looking at 50% price differences on some items.

severedblue wrote:

insaniak wrote:
However, GW does have an Australian presence, so it's conceivable that the same principles would apply to them. The fact that they have an Australian presence and are blocking online purchases could very well land them in the same boat.

Yes, if they do have an Australian presence they do have a liability to the ACCC... the case can be made that the local distributor is attempting to block parallel importing, which is legal in Australia. Whether blocking parallel importing is breaching Australian competition law remains to be seen with this test case on clothing importers.

Regardless Wayland could EASILY bring this up in a court situation and a Judge (if its anything close to US court style) can make a cal on what he thinks. He can make a judgement call and that would be that. Most likely the Judge will vote in favor of the smaller corps but it can go either way. If Wayland does bring it up, it would be great discussion.

(Paralegal point of view, I am not giving ANY legal advice and as such just pointing out common facts.)

Why would Wayland Games endanger their contract with their biggest supplier to bring a court action in a country that they are not based in?

This legislation wood seem to not apply since what GW has set up limits European distributors to Europe. This actually has the effect of protecting Austrailian businesses from European companies that they can not compete with. I have yet to see an Austrailian politician with the balls to advocate job losses over cheaper luxury products for consumers. It doesn't seem like the sort of person that would get many votes from your common Aussie battler!

Lord Castellan Mik wrote:don't forget that Forgeworld IS Games Workshop as well

and they don't charge location, location, location prices

Black Library do.

Buying eBooks from BL Australia costs more than buying them from BL UK, and no one can even try to claim that's due to shipping or other such globe-crossing nonsense. That's a file on a sever. It makes no sense.

@OP, You realise that these are the same Australian competition laws that prohibits the import of books for retail sale, instead legally requiring them to be printed and published here to 'protect' Australians.
Nothing is going to happen.
Nothing.

Krellnus wrote:@OP, You realise that these are the same Australian competition laws that prohibits the import of books for retail sale, instead legally requiring them to be printed and published here to 'protect' Australians.
Nothing is going to happen.
Nothing.

I worked for a company that was bought by its competitor. It's not a small industry, but a lesser known industry. The merger was the two biggest in it, making up 70% of the industry. The ACCC didn't give a gak. I've also lost two jobs in this industry due to IT being sent off shore, because they can hire 3 people for my wage where they sent it.

Don't count on the ACCC caring one whit about Australian jobs as long as there's no public outcry. The book industry is huge, and any stink kicked up by them will get public notice. The miniatures industry? Not so much.

-Loki- wrote:

Don't count on the ACCC caring one whit about Australian jobs as long as there's no public outcry. The book industry is huge, and any stink kicked up by them will get public notice. The miniatures industry? Not so much.

So how would disenfranchised Australian GW miniature aficionados go about forcing Australia to do something about what GW has done?

H.B.M.C. wrote:Buying eBooks from BL Australia costs more than buying them from BL UK, and no one can even try to claim that's due to shipping or other such globe-crossing nonsense. That's a file on a sever. It makes no sense.

Also buying books from BL US is cheaper than BL UK.

meh the thing is i have just brought 500 dollars of 40k from eurozone and i am in australia... and nothing happened lol it doesnt do crap all

Yeah I pretty much just buy all of my stuff through Bitz Barn if I have a need for GW stuff. Good prices, cheap postage, and the stuff gets here reasonably quickly. For the price I pay, I don't mind waiting.

spaceXjam wrote:meh the thing is i have just brought 500 dollars of 40k from eurozone and i am in australia... and nothing happened lol it doesnt do crap all

Which webstore did you use? If you say ebay, you obviously don't understand how the embargo works.

Guess I've gotta make a call to the ACCC...

spaceXjam wrote:meh the thing is i have just brought 500 dollars of 40k from eurozone and i am in australia... and nothing happened lol it doesnt do crap all

Bought as in received, or just ordered?