Australian Price Gouging

by on 28/10/09 at 11:05 am

Australian Price Gouging

One thing that has really been annoying me lately is companies that think it’s OK to artificially inflate prices of products here in Australia. There are a lot of companies doing this and it really needs to stop. With the Internet, more and more people are looking overseas for cheaper prices. More often than not, the exact same product can be shipped from a US retailer all the way over here to Australia at nearly half the price of going to a local retail store.

The biggest example of this recently would be Sony’s new PSPgo. Here in Australia it has an RRP of AU$449.95. In the US, that price is US$249. How can Sony justify this? It’s nearly half the price over the other side of the world! The good news about this, however, is that Australian customers have realised that it is way overpriced and just haven’t bought them. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for Sony.

Another example is the new Windows 7. There is absolutely no difference with the products you can get from the US or here in Australia, yet the prices are different. In the US, the Ultimate version of the Operating System is US$229. Over here in Australia? Once again, we’re ripped off at AU$430.

I constantly find myself looking at US sites for cheaper products than just go to my local retail store. The only thing these companies are doing is hurting the local economy and sending money overseas.

There is some good news though. I really have to congratulate Dell for not following this trend. Just yesterday I was looking at their website. They have a 21.5″ multitouch monitor for AU$499. I then proceeded to check the US site to see if they would be cheaper there, the monitor was US$469, which actually works out to be AU$508. That’s right, it’s cheaper here on the Australian website than the US one.

I really hope to see more companies following the trend that Dell are setting. It’s time companies got over the “local marketplace” pricing and realised that, thanks to the Internet, it doesn’t really exist any more.

  • antaneskou

    Australian situation not the worst. Just spend a few minutes to have a look up of the prices in Russia :)
    We have iPhone 3G (!) now selling through the official distributor (Mobile Tele Systems) at a price of US$900 for the 16GB.
    Searching the same on eBay – it will cost about $510.

    Just let it off. The companies will be getting as much as they could until buyers buy.

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