Warren Jones on 08/01/02 11:45 AM, wrote: > To me, the prices seem ridiculous. > > Freight costs should be ruled out as the cause of any significant > difference since it shouldn't cost anymore to ship to Aus than US from > Taiwan. The same goes for insurance costs.
No. Not all markets are the same and to compare the Australian market to the US market in real world terms is just wrong. It's a constant battle to *maintain* shipping services to Australia let alone push freight rates down. In manufacturing and distribution it's a numbers game if you have a market with 250 million people spread over roughly the same geographic area as say a market of 20 million people your distribution costs will be amortized over the larger number and result in a lower per unit cost to your customers. Not even including the higher cost, due to lower volumes, of getting the product from Taiwan, China, Singapore, etc to here. Australia is a large country that is very sparsely populated which equates to higher internal shipping costs. Approx 12% of our annual GDP is in distribution compare that to tourism which accounts for less than 6%. Living in Perth, the worlds most geographically isolated city with a potential market of what a million people? (a township by world standards) and you wonder why you have to pay 6% more? I would suggest you're actually receiving a subsidized price supported by the purchasing volumes in the larger Eastern states markets. Cheers Troy. PS: Having just watched the webcast the really big news for me is that Apple have thrown the switch and Mac OS X is now *THE* Apple operating system! How come no one made much mention of that?
