Of course they appear higher, our $ has been hovering around parity with the $US whereas the Euro is approx., 0.78 and the GBP is approx., 0.64 to the $US.
This issue has been going on for years in the music equipment "arena", the problem there is that virtually all o/seas companies used a distributor in Aust., who then supplied the retailers.........there were cases of the distributors marking up in excess of 100% (and sometimes much more) to establish the sell price to retailers. The same distributors also set the RRP which frequently left the retailers with precious little room to move if they wanted to get a sale. Admittedly, there were/are some items where the retailers actually can make a reasonable profit but they're in the minority.
While ever importers, be they distributors or importing retailers can get away with inflating their margins they will, just as there are some retailers who will always list a higher price than others.
If enough people, for a long enough period of time, buy s/hand or import new or s/hand from o/seas then we may see things start to change
