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 44Ronin wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:

44Ronin wrote:No need to make silly posts.

I agree, so why are you making silly posts claiming GW doesn't have a monopoly when it clearly does?

Talk about beating your head into the wall.

GW does not have a monopoly on miniatures.

Branding =/= monopoly. You clearly have zero understanding of business to even understand what is a monopoly.

I'm starting to think the average of IQ will go up when all the rage quitters actually quit as they so profusely promise and threaten..

I never once claimed that Games Workshop has a monopoly on every single wargaming miniature in the known universe.

I said they had a monopoly on 40k minis (and Fantasy, etc.), if you want to play 40k you can only use Citadel minis which can only be purchased from Games Workshop.

 PrinceRaven wrote:

if you want to play 40k you can only use Citadel minis which can only be purchased from Games Workshop.

That's just nonsense.

I agree, but it's hard to argue with the rulebook and various store and event managers.

^lol that's awesome

whilst I agree that the price markup is ridiculous, we have to expect to pay more than the UK/US, simply because Australian wages are higher - just look at the minimum wage difference.

 Khaine wrote:
whilst I agree that the price markup is ridiculous, we have to expect to pay more than the UK/US, simply because Australian wages are higher - just look at the minimum wage difference.

We're a more wealthy nation than the wealthiest nation in the world, which has a 20% higher GDP per capita than us? /facepalm Maybe their wealth was hiding somewhere behind their 11 carrier battle groups.

Your argument works for locally produced things - higher wages means higher costs of production. Something produced in the UK has UK production costs. To charge us more for it means GW is making extra pure profit on the item as the UK production cost for something sold in the UK is the same as the UK production cost for something sold in Australia.

Edit for data:
Average wages by nation 2012:

rank Country Disposable wage
1 United States 38,753 29.6% 55,048
2 Ireland 38,210 25.9% 51,565
3 Luxembourg 33,373 36.6% 52,639
4 Australia 33,319 32.9% 49,655

You were saying about higher wages in Australia? A higher minimum wage is far less relevant than average wage. The poorest of us can buy more than the poorest of them. On average per person, they can buy more than us.

 Yonan wrote:

 Khaine wrote:
whilst I agree that the price markup is ridiculous, we have to expect to pay more than the UK/US, simply because Australian wages are higher - just look at the minimum wage difference.

We're a more wealthy nation than the wealthiest nation in the world, which has a 20% higher GDP per capita than us? /facepalm

Your argument works for locally produced things - higher wages means higher costs of production. Something produced in the UK has UK production costs. To charge us more for it means GW is making extra pure profit on the item as the UK production cost for something sold in the UK is the same as the UK production cost for something sold in Australia.

I agree that GW is making extra profit off us just for the sake of it, I'm just saying that we can't reasonably expect the same prices as the US etc.
It costs more to pay staff and rent property in Australia, I'm not referring to production costs. And the US may have higher GDP per capita than us, but it also has much higher inequality than we do ie their wealth is more unevenly spread. Australia is definitely a wealthier nation than both the US and the UK on a person to person basis, I'm pretty sure that's like an accepted fact. A good way of gauging this is to compare wages for a common profession such as a teacher.

 Khaine wrote:
It costs more to pay staff and rent property in Australia, I'm not referring to production costs.

If adding their own local offices *increases* rather than decreases costs, they're fething incompetent and need to kill them off and let independents manage it for them. Other wargaming companies manage pricing parity this way.

I'd be perfectly happy to pay a minor price increase due the extra costs.

+40% is not a minor price increase.

Rent and staff doesn't explain why their wholesale prices suck either. Flgs can't help much

 Khaine wrote:
whilst I agree that the price markup is ridiculous, we have to expect to pay more than the UK/US, simply because Australian wages are higher - just look at the minimum wage difference.

Minimum wages are irrelevant. Most people on minimum wage can't afford hobbies in the first place.

If you compare professional wages (as in, the money earnt by the people who actually have some disposable income) in western countries, the story is a little different.



And, frankly, the 'you earn more, so you shoudl pay more' argument is bogus. If you go into a coffee shop with someone who earns less than you do, should they pay less for their coffee than you?

I'm happy with paying a little more but like you said a little more isn't 40%

I know it's not GW but here is a price comparison.

Asics kyanos us $170 Australia $250
Surf brand shirts $29 ish Australia $50ish

Yes I now there is tax to be adde to us prices but still considering neither are made in USA, and shipping would be cheaper to aus.... It's got me at a loss.

Australia is viewed as the end of the earth and aparently it costs a mint to ship stuff here.....

Zagaboff wrote:
Australia is viewed as the end of the earth and aparently it costs a mint to ship stuff here.....

I think we've shown that it's not about shipping. When GW were selling the full chapter of Ultramarines, I could have literally bought a plane ticket to England, bought the set there for GBP, flown home with it in my luggage and still saved money on the AU RRP pricing.

 ruprecht wrote:

Zagaboff wrote:
Australia is viewed as the end of the earth and aparently it costs a mint to ship stuff here.....

I think we've shown that it's not about shipping. When GW were selling the full chapter of Ultramarines, I could have literally bought a plane ticket to England, bought the set there for GBP, flown home with it in my luggage and still saved money on the AU RRP pricing.

this sounds about right... its downright silly.

though i did the math on that new terminator bundle, and yes aus pays more than the US for the box BUT, over the costs of the individual models we get a bigger saving.... i dont get that either.

also the min wage in the states... its lower, but say you work as a bartender for example the tips they get on the average day MORE than make up for the hourly loss, and im not sure if tips are taxable in the usa.

 ruprecht wrote:

Zagaboff wrote:
Australia is viewed as the end of the earth and aparently it costs a mint to ship stuff here.....

I think we've shown that it's not about shipping. When GW were selling the full chapter of Ultramarines, I could have literally bought a plane ticket to England, bought the set there for GBP, flown home with it in my luggage and still saved money on the AU RRP pricing.

Wow that's awesome

 captain bloody fists wrote:

 ruprecht wrote:

Zagaboff wrote:
Australia is viewed as the end of the earth and aparently it costs a mint to ship stuff here.....

I think we've shown that it's not about shipping. When GW were selling the full chapter of Ultramarines, I could have literally bought a plane ticket to England, bought the set there for GBP, flown home with it in my luggage and still saved money on the AU RRP pricing.

Wow that's awesome

It's really not.

kb_lock wrote:
Rent and staff doesn't explain why their wholesale prices suck either. Flgs can't help much

Pretty much. It's pretty crazy to have a wholesale price here that is higher than what you can buy it retail from another country even when you include shipping. If it was genuinely that the cost of doing business in Oz is so much higher, the wholesale price would only be slightly higher and the RRP would be higher to account for the higher cost of doing business rather than the wholesale price being massively higher.

 ruprecht wrote:

Zagaboff wrote:
Australia is viewed as the end of the earth and aparently it costs a mint to ship stuff here.....

I think we've shown that it's not about shipping. When GW were selling the full chapter of Ultramarines, I could have literally bought a plane ticket to England, bought the set there for GBP, flown home with it in my luggage and still saved money on the AU RRP pricing.

Sorry was bend a bit sarcastic. i don't think anyone is fooled by the pricing policy, its just based around greed, unfortunately every company seems to have the same opinion.

I'm not a business executive, however if i was, i would of thought pricing things lower, selling twice as much would be a better outcome? increasing the % of miniature gamers playing GW games over others, and finding it easier to introducing new members who won't be scared by the price, as well as having more people playing and promoting the game because they are discussing it with the friends work mates ect.... maybe thats too long term for them?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

kb_lock wrote:
Rent and staff doesn't explain why their wholesale prices suck either. Flgs can't help much

Pretty much. It's pretty crazy to have a wholesale price here that is higher than what you can buy it retail from another country even when you include shipping. If it was genuinely that the cost of doing business in Oz is so much higher, the wholesale price would only be slightly higher and the RRP would be higher to account for the higher cost of doing business rather than the wholesale price being massively higher.

Exactly, how come the price hike isn't just a uniform %.

by any chance are the troops units more expensive compared to other comparisons?

 -Loki- wrote:

 captain bloody fists wrote:

 ruprecht wrote:

Zagaboff wrote:
Australia is viewed as the end of the earth and aparently it costs a mint to ship stuff here.....

I think we've shown that it's not about shipping. When GW were selling the full chapter of Ultramarines, I could have literally bought a plane ticket to England, bought the set there for GBP, flown home with it in my luggage and still saved money on the AU RRP pricing.

Wow that's awesome

It's really not.

I was just meaning that I should go over to the UK for a holiday and stock up on GW stuff whilst enjoying a break from work.

Zagaboff wrote:
I'm not a business executive, however if i was, i would of thought pricing things lower, selling twice as much would be a better outcome?

I am sort of a business executive, and yes that would make sense, but the problem (for consumers) is that they won't sell twice as much by dropping the prices. It's not greed really, at least not on GW's part - it's greed on the part of their institutional investors to get a dividend every year, which forces short-term business strategies like pricing over longer term investments like eating losses while expanding their customer base and engaging/retaining paying bittervets.

If GW have 30 AU stores, it costs them 30 x 150k GBP / year to run them. That includes salaries, rent etc and is not very different to what it costs to operate a US store.

They need to make enough margin on the products they sell to cover those costs. If they aren't covering it (as was the case in 2011/12 when GW AU made a loss), they can either sell more stuff, or sell less stuff at a higher price. They chose the 2nd option rather than the first, rightly predicting that the loss in sales wouldn't be worse than the increase in revenues from the higher prices. It paid off, because they made a small profit in 2012/13 (they also closed some unprofitable stores etc, but this is a simplistic summary).

Now if as they say they haven't increased prices this year (which may be strictly true, but isn't effectively true due to repacks and new products), you would expect that their profit would further increase in 2013/14 due to those stores increasing market penetration. The danger for GW however is that bittervets stop paying the higher local prices and import, and that is the risk they accepted when they jacked prices. We'll see when the annual report is out in Jun/Jul.

For us as consumers though, GW AU stores represent two things: a place to play and an outlet for our plastic crack. GW bets that this is enough to keep enough people shopping in stores to make their strategy pay off. As an individual consumer, unless the benefit of having a local store is worth the Australia tax, you're not GW's market and it makes sense to import.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
various store and event managers.

other than GW...being who.,?

Let me give you an idea

Terracon :

CONVERSIONS AND PROXIES

The use of other models to represent models in the 40K galaxy is allowed (and even encouraged). Nothing is cooler than seeing conversion work that give an army a feel, a vibe, a uniqueness and theme.

Terracon will not be receiving sponsorship from Games Workshop, therefore models from other war-gaming companies may be acceptable under certain conditions, however some restrictions on proxies need to be observed. If the model is not produced by Games Workshop, then it will need to be of equal or superior quality to the model it represents. For example, using a bag of toy soldiers bought from a $2 shop as Imperial Guardsmen will be unacceptable, and you will be asked to remove them from the table.
Models and weapons MUST be easily recognizable, and must be identical dimensions and bases to the GW model that they represent. If your opponent cant guess what the model represents without asking you, then it is probably unacceptable.

If you are unsure about whether your models will be acceptable or not, please contact me via PM on WAU and I will let you know.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but Australia has a blanket 30% import tax on [em]any[/em] book, regardless of content or whether it is produced here or has competition here.

If you look at:
50GBP =
AU$91 * 1.3 =
$118 + GST =
$130.13

So the Australian Tax, (you know, aside from all the *actual* taxes) is more like $10, which they do, as others have mentioned, tend to put on to make up for higher minimum wages and store rentals in Australia.

So, obviously there's a lot of rage going on here, but please make sure it's in proportion - the Australia Tax equates to about 7% of the final retail price.

majendie wrote:
I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but Australia has a blanket 30% import tax on [em]any[/em] book, regardless of content or whether it is produced here or has competition here.

There is? Googling around I can't find any mention of it. I googled importing books and they only say 5% customs duty + 10% GST and googled "australian tax books" and only mentions of the 10% GST. Perhaps you can provide evidence because I can't find it.

If Australia is the sort of country that charges 30% import duty on books I think it's time I find another country, not sure I want to live somewhere like that I only paid 10% to import my car.

I haven't bothered to follow this thread but the "Australia Tax" is just a name that represents the vast price difference australian's pay just because. The vast majority of items imported into australia have no taxes applied to them. Our GST is only applicable to imports greater than $1000.

To say this once and once only, it has nothing to do with wages, property rents or whatever piss poor excuse you can come up with. Price differences on digitally distributed items disproves all of that. Companies charge Australians more simply because they can get away with it.

To say this once and once only, it has nothing to do with wages, property rents or whatever piss poor excuse you can come up with. Price differences on digitally distributed items disproves all of that. Companies charge Australians more simply because they can get away with it.

this pretty much says it all

I've just resigned to buying what I need and nothing special

but the governments budget may effect their buyer base as younger gamers will have to focus on keeping jobs rather than buying gw products.

Everyone I know in AUS working in similar fields also earns 40% more than me in the UK.
This translates into the price of beer and other items too. It's the cost of living in Australia...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lots of things are marked up in Australia for this very reason....

 Mij'aan wrote:
Everyone I know in AUS working in similar fields also earns 40% more than me in the UK.
This translates into the price of beer and other items too. It's the cost of living in Australia...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lots of things are marked up in Australia for this very reason....

According to the average wage stats I linked earlier in this thread:
The average wage in Aus is 10% higher than in the UK.
The average wage in Aus is 15% lower than in the US.

The SM strikeforce is $225 in the US, £140 ($US235) in the UK and $350 ($US323) in Aus. How do those figures fit into your argument you think? The highest average wage country pays the least.

Wages affect the cost of items produced in Australia, not produced overseas.

 Mij'aan wrote:
Everyone I know in AUS working in similar fields also earns 40% more than me in the UK.
This translates into the price of beer and other items too. It's the cost of living in Australia...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lots of things are marked up in Australia for this very reason....

That's interesting, because I worked for a couple of years in the US and everyone working in similar fields earns only marginally less than I did. People in lower paying jobs (closer to minimum wage) tended to earn less, but then after talking to many of my friends we discovered that the luxury item spending money they had wasn't much less largely due to much lower rent costs in the area I was living over there compared to where I was living in Australia, also fuel and vehicles tended to be cheaper.

So much for random anecdotal evidence!

Wages affect the cost of items produced in Australia, not produced overseas.

For Aus I would think the costs for GW for product would be the same as for UK/US. The packaging is not AU specific so unless they ship the sprues and pack here, then the economies of scale would have to kick in and production costs would be similar for any English language market.

Local wages, rent etc might contribute to the difference but not to the extent that justifies the differences we have. GW are slapping on a premium because they can and actively make it difficult to get product from cheaper regions (eg terms of trade in EU, website limitations fo US 3rd party sellers)