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 Morachi wrote:
Which I might add has only happened in the last couple of weeks. That wage is also based at over 21's.

Still want to explain prior to this last two week period what was going on?

It's been over fourteen dolars since 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_law#Australia

He has it right n0t_u, however as that is only a recently adjusted figure based on the outcome of union trade agreements - it still does not account for the last two years (and beyond) where GW have inflated the prices here and done everything in their power to discourage Australians from buying outside the country.

It's been over fourteen dolars since 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_law#Australia

Yes it has, however our exchange rate hasn't been up to USD parity until November 2010. So in effect the wage wasn't anywhere near what you're referring to.

I know for a fact it was over double the uk minimum wage when the embargo was brought in because I remember having a similar conversation back then. Check the link I just gave you and find a historic conversion if you want.

Arguing that the minimum wage does or does not have an effect is fair enough but trying to say that the Australian minimum wage is not much higher than it is in the US and Uk and hasn't been throughout the time of this issue has existed is just plain false.

I'd wager the £1.50 shipping on the Forgeworld site is actually wrong.

Well I guess that means GW wont get any customer under 18 then

The embargo was brought in round May 2011. At that point we were .65 cents to the UK Pound and our wage was $15.00 AUD (9.75 Pound Sterling adjusted).

According to the link below, GW pay 7% above the median rate for a hobby center manager which works out to 42,463.93 Pound Sterling per Annum.

http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Employer=Games_Workshop%2c_LLC/Job-Listings?startIndex=10

That more or less works out to a 60k AUD a year job, which is nowhere near minimum wage.

I'd wager the £1.50 shipping on the Forgeworld site is actually wrong.

It is correct, i've purchased one off items like this many times in the past and that's what i've been charged. I've even bought eBay items from the UK at similar pricing.

 Morachi wrote:
.

I'd wager the £1.50 shipping on the Forgeworld site is actually wrong.

It is correct, i've purchased one off items like this many times in the past and that's what i've been charged. I've even bought eBay items from the UK at similar pricing.

Cool, in which case maybe just email GW and tell them their website's shipping calculator is overzealous? I've had to do that with US sellers before, and they've been more than happy to sort it out if there's a genuine glitch. Posting on a forum won't get you answers or satisfaction, just a weird armchair lawyer debate about wages, it seems... *puzzled*

 BolingbrokeIV wrote:
I don't often see that post to be honest.

At the end of the day GW give you the option to buy locally and if you choose not to do so they charge you a premium because you choose not to support the local set up (which costs a lot more to run in your country because of high overheads brought on by a near double minimum wage). A high minimum wage means a higher cost of living. If you want to have your cake (enforce higher average payments than most countries) and eat it (buy cheap imports) then watch your high street go down the pan.

Simple.

 Morachi wrote:

This thread has nothing to do with the average income sorry. Minimum wage does not mean that everyone is ON minimum wage, it merely means they can get away with paying people that if a business so chooses.

I think you'll find the average GW worker outside of Australia will be on much lower than the minimum wage in your country.

Going by your logic, GW items in Poland, where the redshirts at the official GW store make around 3-4 USD/hour (pretty close to the minimum wage which is around 2 USD / hour), should be sold for cheaper, then?

Fun times, shame the pricing does not reflect that at all, as the difference after currency conversion is only 2 dollars on most of the kits.

 Alkasyn wrote:
Going by your logic, GW items in Poland, where the redshirts at the official GW store make around 3-4 USD/hour (pretty close to the minimum wage which is around 2 USD / hour), should be sold for cheaper, then?

Yup.

What's the minimum wage in Brazil? GW stuff'd be basically free over there compared to here right?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Alkasyn wrote:
Going by your logic, GW items in Poland, where the redshirts at the official GW store make around 3-4 USD/hour (pretty close to the minimum wage which is around 2 USD / hour), should be sold for cheaper, then?

Yup.

What's the minimum wage in Brazil? GW stuff'd be basically free over there compared to here right?

Seems it has been recently changed to 678 reais ($326) per month for 220 working hours.

220 working hours should in the US more or less equate to ~1,600 USD / month.

Some posters seem to have a double mindset. If the company has to raise prices to make up for conversion rates and minimum wage, why does it not lower the prices in cheaper regions?

Companies generally raise prices to cope with increased costs but rarely ever drop them when conditions are more favourable. Just how it is. Same for any company everywhere.

If you lower prices you lower profit, so you don't do it. It's not evil, it's just business.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Companies generally raise prices to cope with increased costs but rarely ever drop them when conditions are more favourable. Just how it is. Same for any company everywhere.

If you lower prices you lower profit, so you don't do it. It's not evil, it's just business.

Except in GWs case their Australian market is dropping rapidly, lowering prices would go a long way to maintaining their customer base and ensuring long term viability.

This thread reminds me that should we ever get an official gw store here in Switzerland, prices would be so high that I could treat my models as luxury goods.

It happened with Ducati and accessories, everything was sold here at twice the normal price (and they aren't cheap to start with, so you can imagine), ultimately it was cheaper to have things shipped from the factory to the US and bought from there, shipping costs included.
Explanation was "you get higher salaries so you can afford it". Yeah... thanks.

And the same with BMW, they also forbid neighbour countries dealers to sell cars to swiss clients, because we had to pay swiss premium prices in Switzerland. Then the authorities discovered this pattern and suddenly prices dropped in line with EU market.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Companies generally raise prices to cope with increased costs but rarely ever drop them when conditions are more favourable. Just how it is. Same for any company everywhere.

If you lower prices you lower profit, so you don't do it. It's not evil, it's just business.

Except in GWs case their Australian market is dropping rapidly, lowering prices would go a long way to maintaining their customer base and ensuring long term viability.

I wasn't talking specifics, just explaining that generally companies never lower territory/shipping prices once they've raised them. They like to pretend that it averages out over time, and I've been privy to some hilarious self-justifying from our suppliers at the companies I've worked for.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Companies generally raise prices to cope with increased costs but rarely ever drop them when conditions are more favourable. Just how it is. Same for any company everywhere.

If you lower prices you lower profit, so you don't do it. It's not evil, it's just business.

Oh I do know that.

By using my exaggerated parabole I wanted to point toward the fact that the explanations used in this thread makes little sense. Why can the company be excused when it takes all the positive things that come out of globalisation and pass on all the negatives to us? Unnecessarily, might I add - because keeping outdated exchange rates cannot be excused as just maximizing profits.

Yeah I felt super bad for the Auzzies until just the last two weeks Ive read three seperate articles about how rich they all are. One was about the mineral boom and truck drivers and labourers earning a fortune and having boats, one was about a British family that emigrated and have twice as much disposable income, and the other was from a student contributor on the BBC who said they are rolling in money out there.

Considering everyone in the UK is on the bones of their arse, I can kinda understand the disparity. I mean, its not fair obviously, but clearly they think you guys can afford to pay a little more for unimportant frivolous things like toy soldiers.

From that site... I would say the $15 was not the only choice

Juniors:

Under 16 years of age $5.87
At 16 years of age $7.55
At 17 years of age $9.22
At 18 years of age $10.90
At 19 years of age $13.17
At 20 years of age $15.59.
Apprentices

Year 1 of apprenticeship $10.22
Year 2 of apprenticeship $12.08
Year 3 of apprenticeship $14.87
Year 4 of apprenticeship $17.65.

That being said,
I am almost certain that GW's policies are just to keep the AUS market at this price because they doubt a change would increase sales equivalently (and really annoy all the people that bought it at retail that don't know the price disparity across the world)

They cannot think that the value of the dollar (which is the only valid way of comparing company prices on something that is a simple consumer good) is going to tank that far and base policy of that. I mean, it hasn't been at the 'set' level in over 10 years.

 BolingbrokeIV wrote:
You have two shops. One pays the staff twice as much as the other but to all other apearances they are exactly the same. Do you think the store paying higher wages can afford to sell their products at the same rate as the one not doing so?

Now turn that around: You walk into a store to buy something. They charge you twice as much as the guy in front of you who bought the exact same thing, just because you earn more. Sound fair?


Customers don't care a jot about a store's overheads. If a store can't afford to run as cheaply as another store somewhere else, then that's an issue for the store to address.

The minimum wage thing is a red herring. The simple fact is that GW set their price conversion rate 10 years ago when the Oz dollar was worth squat. Then the dollar started doing better... but the price conversion remained the same. For a company that imports everything, that means that somewhere along the retail chain, they're getting more money for the same product. So the old 'but wages are higher!!1!' is meaningless. If they could afford to sell their product at the previous gakky exchange rate despite Oz's wages, they could afford to adjust their prices to match the current currency exchange. Particularly given how much else they have done in the interim to reduce costs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mattyrm wrote:
Yeah I felt super bad for the Auzzies until just the last two weeks Ive read three seperate articles about how rich they all are. One was about the mineral boom and truck drivers and labourers earning a fortune and having boats,

Yeah, that's great for those who work in the mining industry. Not a lot of wargamers in that industry, though... the work hours don't tend to leave much time for it.

, and the other was from a student contributor on the BBC who said they are rolling in money out there.

So a highly reputable source, then...

 mattyrm wrote:
I mean, its not fair obviously, but clearly they think you guys can afford to pay a little more for unimportant frivolous things like toy soldiers.

And given that GW Oz has been slowly but steadily nose-diving, even with the extra profit margin from the favorable exchange rate, clearly they thought wrong...

 mattyrm wrote:
I mean, its not fair obviously

I fixed that for you, only the relevant part.
No-one is saying we can't buy it at crazy stupid prices... just it is not fair. That's all.

Generally when business do something that is known to be not fair, people don't rationalize it.

 mattyrm wrote:
Yeah I felt super bad for the Auzzies until just the last two weeks Ive read three seperate articles about how rich they all are. One was about the mineral boom and truck drivers and labourers earning a fortune and having boats, one was about a British family that emigrated and have twice as much disposable income, and the other was from a student contributor on the BBC who said they are rolling in money out there.

Considering everyone in the UK is on the bones of their arse, I can kinda understand the disparity. I mean, its not fair obviously, but clearly they think you guys can afford to pay a little more for unimportant frivolous things like toy soldiers.

Not a fair picture.

The mining companies frequently try an sneak in overseas workers to do the work at much lower pay.

Those companies pay very little tax and are taking Australia's wealth for their own.

The average Australian has nothing to do with mining.

It would be like me looking at the queen and thinking every brit has a castle.

Believe me the picture inside the borders is not as pretty as some would make out. The government is inherently dishonest atm, and is actively hiding the true jobless figures. Everything keeps rising in cost far out of step with inflation.

My gaming budget has shrunk due to other expenses going up. GW stuff is neither the best nor are their games that well crafted anymore, so I find FoW or Warmachine far more appealing on price, atheistic - however I do not want to see GW fail in Australia.

...Ive read three seperate articles about how rich they all are...

Oh yeah man!

Once I've paid off the monthly mortgage repayment with the spare diamonds I find under my couch it's nothing but hookers and hash all weekend... oh wait my mortgage repayments are a significant chunk of my monthly pay. Oh look, once I pay for electricity, water, interest on my credit card and any other expenses I'm lucky to have any disposable incoming that doesn't go towards food.

We are all super rich though...

 insaniak wrote:

 BolingbrokeIV wrote:
You have two shops. One pays the staff twice as much as the other but to all other apearances they are exactly the same. Do you think the store paying higher wages can afford to sell their products at the same rate as the one not doing so?

Now turn that around: You walk into a store to buy something. They charge you twice as much as the guy in front of you who bought the exact same thing, just because you earn more. Sound fair?

Customers don't care a jot about a store's overheads. If a store can't afford to run as cheaply as another store somewhere else, then that's an issue for the store to address.

I find it very hard to believe GW puts a higher price on its products in Australia because they think you can afford to pay it. And raising prices is a pretty standard way to address overheads.

I'm hearing a ton of, 'yeh we get higher wages but look at the price of our rents, morgages, fuel costs etc'. Then you are wondering why GW isn't exempt from the average higher cost of things out there? But instead of looking at the most conspicuous reasons you want to believe it's just GW taking it out on you because you have higher wages?

I'll keep saying it. A higher minimum wage means a higher cost of living.

gw don't care, they are looking for a profit by uping prices and trying to control how the customer spend their money - eg. embargos, closing down stores, changing contract with internet stores ect.

they don't care about our wages or if we are eating or paying our rent they just want to get more profit each quarter.sad really

 BolingbrokeIV wrote:
I find it very hard to believe GW puts a higher price on its products in Australia because they think you can afford to pay it.

And yet when the dollar went up, prices stayed the same. They're making more money per sale, because they think that they can get away with doing so. And then when people started catching on to what they were doing, rather than addressing the actual issue they choose to just make it harder for us to buy from overseas.

I'm hearing a ton of, 'yeh we get higher wages but look at the price of our rents, morgages, fuel costs etc'. Then you are wondering why GW isn't exempt from the average higher cost of things out there? But instead of looking at the most conspicuous reasons you want to believe it's just GW taking it out on you because you have higher wages?

Nobody thinks that GW are exempt from the costs of running a business. But those costs are all internal costs. The cost of rent isn't affected by exchange rates. Their stock however comes in from outside the country... and the cost of that stock has dropped dramatically due to the huge increase in the value of the Oz Dollar.

So the cost of their stock has gone down, but GW chose to not pass that saving onto customers. And so customers start noticing that other countries pay significantly less... it should hardly be surprising that they might take that amiss.

Ill keep saying it. A higher minimum wage means a higher cost of living.

But doesn't automatically mean more free spending money. How many of GW's potential customers are on minimum wage? An how much free cash do they have?

That's the relevant issue here. GW's products are a luxury item. As such, they are only purchased by those with the free cash to do so. If they price that product at a level where people don't have enough cash to buy them... sales go down.

Minimum wage is far, far less relevant than how much disposable income GW's actual potential customers have... and how canny they are about what they choose to spend it on.

What's the disparity between Aus and the rest of the world with regards to stuff from other companies?

For example if you bought something from Flames of War, Warmachine, or Infinity - how does the price compare then? I think that would be a pretty fair comparison to make.

I remembered Warmachine as being closer in price, but after a quick look just now they appear to be running with a similar markup on RRP to GW.

Having said that, PP haven't tried to stop Oz customers from purchasing from overseas if they feel so inclined. So we're left to make that choice (pay more to have it now, or pay less and wait a while) for ourselves.

To be honest, while the 'Oz Tax' is annoying and people don't like it, it's at least more or less accepted as normal practice, and those of us who are aware of the pricing disparity between Oz and the rest of the world can at least live with it so long as we know that we have alternatives.

That's where GW really jumped the shark here. Pricing Oz merchandise higher was bad... but then trying to remove any other option for purchasing was downright rude.

Flames is(was...not sure if they moved) New Zealand based...so no premium pricing.

Infinity and PP largely utilize 3rd party distributors in Australia as it is more economical than sending individual packets. Neither of them have embargos though, so if an Aussie customer can get it cheaper in the UK...they are welcome to have it shipped to their door.

Good Games was a big distributor a few years back IIRC, and you can compare prices through their online store easily enough.

http://shop.goodgames.com.au/miniatures/warmahine-hordes/battlegroups.html

http://goodgames.com.au/

There is a certain level of markup which is related to various taxes (think Australia has a 7% GST) as well as shipping to the far reaches of the globe...but nothing like you see with GW.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
There is a certain level of markup which is related to various taxes (think Australia has a 7% GST) as well as shipping to the far reaches of the globe...but nothing like you see with GW.

GST is 10%. There is also a customs duty that may apply to some products of 5 or 10%. Neither of those apply to shipments under $1000 in value.

 Pacific wrote:
What's the disparity between Aus and the rest of the world with regards to stuff from other companies?

For example if you bought something from Flames of War, Warmachine, or Infinity - how does the price compare then? I think that would be a pretty fair comparison to make.

For wargaming, it varies. Warmachine is pretty pricey, but I get the impression it is in the US as well. Infinity is relatively cheap, fireteam boxes sitting at $36au, individual models at $16au, multi model boxes at $26au.

Speaking from an IT perspective, here's a hilarious disparity. It's cheaper to buy a return flight to LA and pay for a passport, fly there, and but Adobe Creative Suite, and fly back, than it is to pay local RRP.

I was mainly thinking for a distributor like Good Games who likely pays the GST and import taxes on all their restock orders.

Looking at their site though and comparing it to The War Store, it looks like most the prices are close, with some being cheaper.

A few were a bit higher, but not beyond what the tax might add to it (which before the apologists get into it...UK has a 20% VAT which is included in the UK prices, and they use the price with tax to calculate RoW prices...).