Save a job, or save a few bucks?

[Owen]

Just wondering if I'm the only one torn between the knowledge that buying gear overseas through e-bay etc is eventually going to kill off the smaller tackle & accesories shops here in Oz and the reality that I haven't got money to burn, so every dollar saved is very important to me?
Having access to the wholesale prices on a small range of fishing gear, I know the markup that our local guys are getting is not huge. Especially considering the stock holdings they have to have.
I'd be interested to hear the comments of any shop owners and othe Ausfish members.

cheers,
Owen

[DR]

if the tackle shop markup is only small, as i am led to believe, i think the distributors must be the ones making all the money.
i just finished working out an order for lures from usa. cost to front door $170,aside from not having some of the stuff i want, cost from local tackle shop is in the vicinity of just under $300.
this is from a tackle shop over there.

so dist. buy from manufact. & get even better deal.
have had it explained that by the time it gets to shops it includes..cost of purchase, freight, duty, gst etc to the dist.. then, markup, handling etc for the dist. after that freight to tackle shop, shop markup, all ads up to expense, it's a pity the shops cannot import direct as prices would be a lot better, but also the poor old tackle shop owner would need to be pretty well heeled to have a well stocked store, as it is he can buy a few bits at a time as needed, the dist. is the one supposedly carrying the stock & big outlay. but how many times have you wanted something special & get told it will be a week or two, even a month as they seem to only order on a monthly basis anyway & don't appear to carry stock. heaps cheaper & in a lot of cases quicker to buy overseas.

in a lot of cases you are at the importers mercy as they have exclusive import deals with manufacturers.

with the internet they will eventually have to change their ways as people realise it is not difficult to bring your own stuff in.

i feel sorry for the tackle shop owners as they are caught in the middle....
but, the truth is i can get gear overseas that i cannot afford here.

as for warranties, if you think it's going to be a problem, buy a brand that has a better track record for reliability, Plus the savings usually mean you can post back overseas 1/2 a dozen times before you even get to the aussie price 7 if they break that much they must be rubbish anyway..

now having said that, on here fishinmission & a few guys got together & bought sounders. from memory the price was just under or just over $100 dearer than import.. so these people can be competetive if they want to.

[damons33]

owen your talking about a retailer that sells mostly imported goods?
i think more like that when buying goods that you have a choice of buying stuff that is made here,
cause you know long term that the stuff made here will out last stuff from china- any company that skimps on labour will skimp on everything else about a product.
what do you think will happen to the phone stuff made here after telstra is sold?
john howard is dirt! so is the labour party- long live bob katter!
damon

[finding_time]

Yes i have paid more for tackle at my local store than i knew i could get it at @mart and i will again!! I support my local store for many reasons
1/ It suits me to have a store close in case at the last minute i need some gear
2/ The advice i get from this store is fantastic you can't say that about @mart
3/ I'm in business myself and no how hard it is to have big guys undercut you.
4/ If i ever need repairs i no because of my support they will bend over backwards to help me asap!!
5/ There bloody good blokes and i enjoy a chat with them and again always gain good info in the process.

If i get all that from paying a little bit more i'll pay more every time because if i don't maybe next time i need something from the above list they wont be in business any more.

Ian

[Owen]

Damon,
I guess most retailers do sell imported goods in the main.
Regardless of that though, purchasing locally does generate local employment.
Something I think is very important.
But as DR says, by buying overseas he can afford things he would not otherwise be able to.
I'm not denouncing people who buy overseas by any means.
As I said, I'm torn between wanting to see the local guy survive and being able to afford what I want.
Being in sales myself (not fishing gear) I am well aware that the distributor/importers make for more GP than the retailer in many cases.
Still, it'll be a sad day when all the local tackle shop go belly up because they can't compete with multinationals and the internet.
We'll end up with stores like Bunnings that employ kids that know jack shit about what they're selling

[Brejen]

Owen like yourself i don't have the money to just buy what i want when i want it. And like most people i shop around for the most competitive prices, and if this means buying from the States then i will.

Having said that thu I will only buy large electronic equipement from over there, sounders radios etc, and you are right it is a large saving for most items.

But all my tackle , bait etc is brought from local suppliers. And all my boating accessories are brought thru my mechanic as he also has a small chandlery, most of his items are a little dearer than the two larger chain boating chandlerys that are here and in Brisbane but he is my machanic and will always support him first if he can't get it then i'll go elsewhere -usually to another little privately owened chanderly.

I live in a small country town in the Gold Coast Hinterland and know the importance of shopping locally, but sometime this is very hard when the savings are quite large and lets face it even saving a small amount is what has to be done now, for me and my family anyhow.. I only buy from overseas on the items that are a lot cheaper and i can save a lot on....
Brett

[PinHead]

I sell and install equipment that is made in China (not fishing gear) and it is top quality...I would not be installing it if it wasn't or else I would be spending too much time attending to warranty calls. The Australian manufacturers in the same industry make an inferior product .
I recently purchased a new boat...the pricing for the US built boat was much cheaper than the equivalent Australian boat.
The main reason for cheaper prices overseas is the fact that these countries have larger populations...hence they have a largewr market to sell into therefore more turnover..larger production runs etc than here which in turn keeps the prices cheaper than here.

[damons33]

you send dollars overseas you are undermining the future prosperity here!
i see your point! because if you charge double for it locally you do have an affect on the demand on such goods as you basically halve the amount of product at the original point of sale/manufacture. money doesnt grow on trees. it grows in a digital neverworld of the occount of a shareholder

pin head-you say better then the stuff made here but you neglect to mention that the manufacting of such products here is in colapse and what is left after we are exposed to a labour market which has undercut us because it doesnt have to meet the same standards in workers rights regards pay standards and safety standards as well as environment protection standards. i suppose you see yourself as entreupenurial! and a blue collar class person, a little battler who was emergent and out shone his competitors....and i'm just another tall poppie syndrome sufferor and not a person who pays for the excesses of the rich and unconsionable..... so i suppose it's a matter of how deep you dig! hey digger.

now seeing we don't own much of a stake in most of our mining resources(we take less then 10%via taxes) or even farming anymore. its easy for retailers to sit happy with the sale of foriegn manufactured goods and the only reason anything made in china is better then here is because of the shift of of manufacturing from western countries to the unrestricted industrial laws that enable them(multinational companies) to exploit labour in developing nations- japan owes 12trillion dollars and its growing, we 280billion and the usa owes an amount which would explain their millitary spending and foriegn policies, the usa will need a war to end its debt problems that you can bet on or it will fade into the kind of poverty that dominates the rest of the americas.
europe is now begining to go down the same road as usa/japan with moving its manufacting to developing countries for the same reason- no industrial relations issues in law or evironmental issues.
now i'm no greenie no lefty or conservative, just a mug that wastes his time listen to some facts that scare the crap out of most people or make them feel uncomfortable
. but tell me what happens when it no longer possible to endure the heat of summer without a airconditioner(paradox here is the fuel used to generate the power for the air conditioner is the reason we need it!) and there is no longer enought clean water to wash your clothes or water crops. seems the "f@#$ you jack" society/world we live in is starting to see the finish line in it's "race". fuel prices are going up because the current world oil reserves are assumed to last 30 more years, at the current rate of 2billions barrels(x44gallons).
australia has coal reserves estimated at present consumption to last 700 to 800 years and lets presume gas has about twice as long as oil, now growth has a compounding affect on consumption so most of the forcasts are very overstated.
its little wonder in the light of this fact that countries like australia and usa are going into negative population growth rates and that is probably at a high level of negativity amongst the most able and capable genuses(peoples of above average iq's). and the "media" continues to coin this phenoninum as "aging populace" and saying its because of improvements in medical sciences, while a conservative goverment continues to raise immigration rates to hide these stats under the giuse of "skilled labour shortages". the days of continued growth in standards of living in this country peaked in the self rightous and absorbed"baby boomer" generation from here we slide downward. who could blame baby boomers after most of there parentage is psycologially damaged by some of the most horrific and unpreceedented conflicts in human history- and our P.M. calls them tough! i don't think he or his desendents were exposed to much of that pain and even if they were i down think it would of made much of an impact on him emotionally, i would like him to go have lunch with a group of kurdish children that are victims of landmines sold to the iraqi' government during the iran/iraq war sold to them from the usa by a company known as halliberry, who has now got the contract of logistical supply of the us forces in iraq- who has a man known to us as donald rumfilled as a director and major share holder of this company as along with a certain wolfawits.
now some science fiction depicts a future like the movie blade runner, others mad max and kevin kossener put his money on a water world- whats your picture of the future for your children or is it better to focas on a pedophiles release from a WA jail as forfilling the fear component of your mind, as to protecting your childrens future- as the commercial media would have you spend your time on instead of the most lethal and pending unescapable threat and thats consumerism. hetty johnson didnt get a show in on last election! beatties wife has a phd in nursing she got it doing a theteus on "florance nightingale", she's never changed a bed pan in her life!. and how much of a welcome did barnarby joice got on his first visit to camberra?
now i dont think the two party system we have is anything more them a sham or that we live under a democratic system of government is anything more then a sham, i feel it is like brewsters millions....none of the above. i just hope you "babyboomer" do something with your financial powers instead of lawn bowls and power boating seeing you are entering the end phase.
remember! a cynisist knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing!
hows that grab ya' for "torn".

damon ps. thankfully i'm going fishing on sunday

[blaze]

I think sometimes we worry to much

[fishsmith]

I think Australia Post is the real winner and there local...

[FNQCairns]

Hi Pinhead not discounting what you said although an Australian made Toyota Camry is cheaper to buy in the US in AUS$ than here!?
If they were RHD importing one could be cheaper than buying here I think this also goes for the V8Commodore.
I suspect there is other forces at work in Australia and we all swallow the party 'Hook line and sinker' in some way.

Actually a person can import NZ made boating electronics from the US for less than over the counter here also???

I dont know for sure but I would almost guarantee a person could buy any Australian made product in the US for less than here. Possibly our pricing here has more to do with a relative lack of competition than volume and population size.

overall

My household is a business in it's own right and I must ensure the bottom line is never exceeded I will go wherever I need to to make sure that happens completely free of guilt. fnq

[gogecko]

I buy from the USA, and Im also concerned about the local shops and their future.

Ive studied markets a lot, particularly stock markets and futures. One thing we do know for sure is that all markets regress to the mean. That means they become less volatile and average themselves out. More players come into the market, changing the gap between supply and demand.Import duties (meant to protect local markets) are being watered down on a worldwide scale. Eventually we will all buy from the cheapest supplier, and so will our local tackle shops.

When there is a price gap between two markets, they will converge or get closer in price over time. Either the USA price will go up, or the Australian price will go down. The manufacturers and importers who supply the Australian market will do it, or someone else will fill the gap and do it. Thats what competition is all about.

It might take several years, but eventually there will no longer be a gap in prices between the 2 countries. Make the most of it while you can.

[bidkev]

What absolutely amazed me when I first came to Oz is that Jacob's creek wine is cheaper in the UK than here.......go figure!

The only *real* whinge that I have is with the sale of textiles here. Buy a throw rug or some other textile and it's labelled "possible shrinkage 2%" or "wash before using" or "this item may bleed". I once bought a pricey throw from Spotsh!te that shrank a full 8% on a cold wash >

Now these items are priced higher than similar items sold in Marks and Sparks in the UK, the only difference being that the Marks and Sparks items do not shrink, do not bleed and are colourfast.

Now these M&S items have been on sale for over 30 yrs. The days of textiles that shrink or aren't colourfast is long gone, (in Europe) so how come they are still selling the inferior crap here? How come that finding throw rugs that don't shrink or bleed is like looking for rocking-horse shit?

The crap comes from China and India where we all know, stuff is produced practically via slave labour. It's brought in 'cause it's cheap.......or is it? The prices, as I say, compare with the prices of quality textiles in the UK, so who is making the mega bucks? The savings aren't being passed onto the consumer, that's for sure.

Of course, if you continue to buy crap, then they'll continue to sell it, but in my case, I have no option, I just can't seem to find quality textiles to buy. The fat cats seem to have a "captured market"

cheers

kev

[baldyhead]

So can anyone explain why I can buy a VHF radio from the US delivered to my door in 5 days for $246.00 Aussie dollars and that identical radio is $519 Aussie dollars no more than 5 klm from my door.... Why would you buy anywhere else for that size saving...complete with Manufacturers Warranty.

[macca]

So can anyone explain why I can buy a VHF radio from the US delivered to my door in 5 days for $246.00 Aussie dollars and that identical radio is $519 Aussie dollars no more than 5 klm from my door.... Why would you buy anywhere else for that size saving...complete with Manufacturers Warranty.

No I dont know why, but I don't really care.

I will always buy the big purchases overseas to save the bucks.

I walk into my local tackle shop regularly, get ignored, get no service and sour looks if I ask for some service.

As far as I'm concerned they don't deserve my dollars.

Instead of them making money, I make some money and buy it where it's cheap, overseas.

One tip though, try to steer clear of Fedex, their good for copping import duties everytime.

Macca