AU$ climbs but Ozzi scope prices stay constant

[digby dart]

The Commonwealth Bank listed their Mastercard exchange rate as US$91.93 for AU$1 last night. As the Ozzi dollar climbs higher against the US green back telescope prices remain constant in Australia. :)

Yet again Australian importers are reticent to pass on the saving to the many amateur Australian astronomers - preferring to pocket any exchange rate gains for themselves. :(

Notably Meade, Celstron and Losmandy prices in Australia are totally disproportionate to those listed for US residents.

To make matters worse Ozzi astronomers are limited in what they can legitimately import directly. US online shops are not meant to sell Celestron, Meade and Orion scopes to Australians - a measure that would seem to protect Australian distributors from global competition.

One would have imagined that the Australian Restrictive Trade Practices Act or the more recent Free Trade Agreement between the US and Australia would have afforded Australians protection against such seemingly blatant profiteering. Either legislation needs to be amended to provide such protection or current legislation needs to be better policed.

National Australian Legislation and International Agreements aside there would seem to be the distinct possibility that another resolve could arise. That of the consumer co-operative.

For instance Ice In Space now has a membership of 3,900. It is clearly a national collective with highly defined market profile and calculable annual market expenditure. It already provides consumer support and enjoys a very high level of consumer trust.

Such an organization poses a potential threat to the established Astronomy equipment distributorship's already in operation in Australia.

An Ice-Co-Op operating on 10% mark-up to cover costs could potentially relegate current Australian Distributorship's to only supplying department store telescopes. :)

[astronut]

Digby,
It's funny that you've posted this.
On another thread last week this situation was discussed.
Within a day (just coincidence) our two major astronomical retailers here in Sydney dropped their prices by approx 20%:lol:

[Kokatha man]

Jeeezzz! $91.93 greenbacks for $1Aus! I'll have some of that - which bank?

[OneOfOne]

Haven't we had this argument before?:(

If we set up a "co-op" I am sure Customs would be interested in taking their cut...5% duty plus 10% GST. Importing a large amount would make it much more likely that someone will get a "lemon" and so have to organise getting it back to the manufacturer. The Australian suppliers also have stock that was purchased when the dollar was a lot lower.

I think all the points have been made before...

[DJDD]

if Australian Suppliers import goods now with the strong AU dollar does this mean that prices of goods will be lower in a few weeks or months? :shrug:

I have never seen that happen with any supplier of any goods, except perhaps electronics. :(

[Stephen65]

So vote with your wallet, don't buy brands that have special inflated "Australian" prices or exclusive distribution deals to eliminate competition here. Either import directly or buy from manufacturers that have fair pricing.

It's for this exact reason I haven't considered buying Meade, Celestron or Losmandy products but have bought Takahashi, William Optics and a variety of others.

[Peter Ward]

Indeed which Bank? :)

[Zuts]

Westpac's current USD sell rate for TT's (bank transfers) is 0.9338 :)

Paul

[GrahamL]

I'm happy enough to buy local most of the time ...if the price has some parity with whats available elsewhere though sometimes it dosn't I know..I have 27 mm pano that is available $100+ cheaper than I bought it new for recently
in aus ..and a $700 7 mm nagler (original owners purchase price) ..Drawing a sketchy parralel here so if the aus dollar dropped to 50 cents tommorow everyone be happy if all prices mostly doubled at the open of trade tommorow ...yeah:P :)???

[g__day]

The buy rate is almost 1 AUD = 0.95 USD, so its a great time to buy!

[Prickly]

I agree with Stephan 65. Aside from the premier brands options (eg. vixen, williams optics) the quality of the Chinese and Tiawanese (skywatcher + guan sheng) products are excellent. Im having a great time with my new chinese Eq6 pro.

No way I would buy a Losmandy at current prices. Nice product but too inflated in price and better value for money elsewhere in my opinion.

Cheers
David

[madtuna]

yeppers! tommorrow I'm buying a bucket full of travellers cheques for my trip in April. I'm lockng that rate in now cause it will no doubt go down again and probably not go much higher..I'll spew if it does though :)

[mick pinner]

in respect to retailers saying that they bought when the dollar was low, l wonder what would happen if l ordered a product now at todays rate and was prepared to wait for delivery, l would have to get it cheaper than the current marked price. wouldn't l ?

[Kokatha man]

What was our arrangement Mick? Didn't you say at the time you'd take greenbacks....?

[taminga16]

Trying to buy when the dollar is up is not unlike waiting for the next generation in technology to hit the market, it never happens, and as for those that feel that Australian retailers should be passing on the savings then get into their outlets and create a bigger demand.

I will bet that they all ***** constantly about the daily fluctuations in fuel prices and if it happened to astro gear, Well Hey!

Greg.

[netwolf]

There should be no duty applied on Astronomical optics and mounts, only GST.
A C8 in the US is listed at approx 1000$ shipping with insurance (based on recent experience) is approx 100usd.
Thats 1100USD ~ 1200AUD + GST ~ 1300AUD?
Note the 1000USD price includes the retailers markup in the US. The lowest price in Aus is $1699, which would be ok if the dollar was 0.71.

[Kal]

Not quite right.

For goods purchased over the internet with a value up to AU$1000, no duty or GST is payable. For goods over AU$1000, customs tax + GST is payable.

For your example, the value of the goods is $US1000 = $AU1057.56. You pay 5% customs fee on this value, which is an extra AU$52.88. You then have to pay GST on the $1057.56 + $52.88 + shipping, and the shipping was US$100 which is AU$105.76, so GST is an extra 10% of AU$1216.2, which adds AU$121.62 bringing the total to AU$1337.82

Note, conversion rate used in this example was 1 AUD = 0.945576 USD

For the correct laws and rules regarding purchasing from overseas, see this customs page (http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=5549)

[Peter Ward]

The premise of this thread is just plain wrong. ATS has dropped Losmandy mount prices over 10% reflecting the higher $A.

[mick pinner]

that may be correct Peter and well done but that does not seem to be the norm across the board. AEC seem to follow the ups and downs of the dollar and yourself it seems so why not everyone else or are we to believe it's a captured market by some outlets.

[Peter Ward]

I would not be so hard on them.

The cost of operating a business (wages, taxes, outgoings) in Oz is higher than in the USA (try getting a machinist here to work for $11 an hour)...with just 15th of their domestic market. Plus if you have stock you have bought at $US0.75, selling to reflect the current $A will send you broke in a hurry.

I look at more like a buying a seat on an airline. Sure there are 5 cent fares out there, but if you absolutely must travel on certain dates, its gonna cost....

[Stephen65]

AEC vary their Tak prices daily based on A$/Yen movements, I was interested in a Tak scope and I couldn't resist the lower A$ price when the A$ hit 104 yen about eight months ago.

If a retailer had stock on hand which they had bought at lower A$/US rates then I could see where they get squeezed selling now (though the reverse will apply for stock bought now and sold when the A$ drops), but many of the larger scopes are only ordered by the retailer when an order is placed by a customer and there is no justification for not applying the current rates.

[mick pinner]

so if you can wait order it today and get it at todays exchange rate? would this be correct? maybe a retailer could reply.

[Peter Ward]

It is possible.

However, many US manufacturers have long wait/delivery times
(eg Paramounts are currently running at about 3 months...and Astro-Physics....8 years and counting!!).

Sure if you want to pay up-front, the retailer should be able to do a forward hedge (the banks never give you a rate quite as good as the spot rate) or use a $US trading account....but even then, who is to know where the $A will be next week, let alone in 3 months, and this may significantly effect shipping and GST on landing.

Unfortunately the $A is the 5th most traded currency in the world, yet accounts for just 2% of the worlds economy. Speculators push it all over the place, while the Reserve sits there and does SFA to stop it.

The fact that it can, and has, lost 10% of its value in a few days is disgraceful.

[skwinty]

In Australia you still have it stable notwithstanding a 10% drop in value.
In South Africa the government just has to say something and the currency goes into freefall.
Viva democracy
Regards
Steve;)

[OneOfOne]

Actually, there is also another ~$48 for the customs handling fee too, bringing it to almost $1400:(

[netwolf]

Andrew,

Perhaps this earlier post by me in a similar thread will explain better
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=148260&postcount=31
Essentially the Customs Tarif act exempts Duty on Astronomical Instruments (non radio astronomy) and mounting.

Regards
Fahim

[digby dart]

Yes... there was too much journalistic licence in my US$91.93 per AU$1 claim. Having put the claim in 'bold' adds substantially to the embarrassment. As of tonight the Commonwealth Bank Mastercard exchange rate is 0.93 Greenbacks per Ozzi dollar. :)

From memory the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the USA sees the end of duties and other applicable taxes - just GST for imports over $1000.

To be fair after reading 'Peter Ward"'s post I looked up ATS Losmandy prices tonight. The Losmandy G-11 (with Gemini GoTo) was listed for approx $A4800 plus GST. That's AU$5280 inc GST. I guess freight could be free?

The price in the USA is US$3195. Freight and GST added, that comes to AU$4084 all up delivered to the Australian Astronomers door from the USA. Over AU$1000 difference.

Perhaps ATS sees itself as an exchange rate business.

The same product being AU$5495 as listed at Bintel. AU$4950 from Telescopes and Astronomy.

As for "The cost of operating a business (wages, taxes, outgoings) in Oz is higher than in the USA"... piffle. Distributors are not making the stuff, just reselling it.

Australian Astronomers are likely being denied easy access to better USA made equipment. They often make do with cheap Chinese equipment.

[citivolus]

While you won't normally see me on this side of this argument, I get much closer to $4500 AU when I do the math, including .93 exchange rate, $500 or so US shipping for the mount, customs processing fee, and GST on the sum of the above. $800 difference on a piece of hardware like this is fairly reasonable to get domestic warranty service, if you consider the cost of shipping a mount once to the USA and back. It is 15% of the price, which is nowhere near, say, the CGE mark up of 40+% you'll see elsewhere (based on what my CGE cost me last month, new, shipped from overseas.)

There are some responsible importers out there. There are also some dubious ones. Avoid the dubious ones and get on with life.

Eric

[netwolf]

Does not the US3195 for G-11 and 925USD for C8price listed by Optcorp and others include a margin. Is it correct to assume local suppliers are paying this price per mount, surely they get a discount. This price seems to be the RRP. So assuming there buy price is less then they have room to add margin in there to cover warranty and there profit etc.

Most of these discussion always begin with an assumption of the price from retail stores in the US. Surely we should consider the cost price to the store before we add shipping/insurance, freight, and margin. If they are selling for 995 or 3195 what are they buying it for?


Regards


Regards
Fahim

[Zuts]

Hi Guys,

Sometimes you cannot ignore overseas suppliers. Let's go for a big saving:-

Losmandy Titan, inc tripod and goto in OZ at $12,250 (average of a number of suppliers)

Losmandy Titan, inc tripod and goto at OPT

Base USD 6,995
Minus members discount USD 100
Plus GST 700 USD
Plus Shipping USD 818, from the OPT shipping calculator
Customs USD 100 (no import duty as free trade with USA, lets add USD 100 clearance)

Total USD 8,513

Convert to AUD at say 0.93 gives AUD 9,153

Well that is over 3,000 AUD difference at the current exchange rate or nearly 30% markup :scared:. I wonder how many Titans get sent back for warranty claims?

Paul

[Peter Ward]

Digby,

Our website is quite specific, and says "price subject to $A to $US".

If you'd actually inquired you with ATS you would have discovered with the current stratospheric $A, our G-11 Gemini price is $4850.00 inc GST.

GST is levied on goods+shipping. There is also about a $64 customs entry and secuity fee, and if you use one off customs broker about $120 in brokerage.

ATS also keeps spares in stock and does repairs and EPROM upgrades in Sydney. It is not up to me to say whether someone will find a less than 10% local service premium worthwhile, but many do.

I have known Scott Losmandy for 20 years now, travel to California virtually every month of the year and am very much aware of his cost, concerns and operation.

You may be surprised to know setting up the HGM operation in Oz had been looked at over a decade ago. The Oz tax, wages, lack of third party suppliers/processors, equipment, transport and materials costs simply made it a joke. Retailers have the same if not similar hurdles.

I am curious as to discover what makes you so well informed to consider this as piffle?

[mick pinner]

and a very good price it is too.

[g__day]

Without wishing to wade in too deeply here - I presume for some suppliers (e.g. Celestron and ExtraVision) its the distributor that shapes the market more than the local retailers.

It is a free market and you can shop where you like, just think that for some items local after sales service and warranty support is more important and this will incur some level of compensation, you have to judge where this is reasonable.