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It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

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Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#41

Post by Nursie »

relix wrote: post #6

These articles take the wrong perspective - it's not that Australia is much more expensive in tech matters, it's that the US is much more cheap. I don't know where the recent Australia-specific articles are coming from, but it's been like this since as long as I can remember - that the US is much more cheap than any other country I'm familiar with for tech stuff, including Australia, but also almost every other count…

Australia is extremely expensive for a lot of stuff. Europe is too, but less so (having lived in both).

Part of this is that the AUD has appreciated in value so much over the last few years, and retailers are just not willing to drop their prices in line with the new purchasing power of the dollar. They also haven't caught up with the modern world in a lot of ways, considering that they still have a captive audience that can't just order off the 'net.

Part of this is down to protectivist legislation, for instance the price of books over there is huge and that is in part due to measures put in place to protect local authors and publishers. The net result though is that bookshops go out of business because people just get stuff online, delivered from other parts of the world. There are also weird legally-backed 'exclusive importer' agreements that result in the same phenomenon with other goods.

Part of the problem is retail rental rates are so high that traditional retailers have to have high prices, and in Oz the online services are usually run by the same folks. So again, business goes abroad.

Part of the problem is that some foreign businesses (Blizzard, I'm looking at you) just gouge Australians. Starcraft II was a hundred bucks to buy online from Australia!

So there's a whole culture of stuff just being expensive over there. The government needs to clean up their own act, but looking at what the private sector tries to pull is also interesting.

Incidentally Apple seemed to me to be one of the few organisations that were not overpriced over there, comparing US and AU prices on their store it was always pretty even (when tax was accounted for)

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#42

Post by kayoone »

relix wrote: post #6

These articles take the wrong perspective - it's not that Australia is much more expensive in tech matters, it's that the US is much more cheap. I don't know where the recent Australia-specific articles are coming from, but it's been like this since as long as I can remember - that the US is much more cheap than any other country I'm familiar with for tech stuff, including Australia, but also almost every other count…

Not only software, also hardware, cars, brand clothing etc.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#43

Post by relix »

stevoski wrote: post #33
relix wrote: post #6

These articles take the wrong perspective - it's not that Australia is much more expensive in tech matters, it's that the US is much more cheap. I don't know where the recent Australia-specific articles are coming from, but it's been like this since as long as I can remember - that the US is much more cheap than any other country I'm familiar with for tech stuff, including Australia, but also almost every other count…

X > Y. Whether you interpret it as X being expensive or Y being cheap, it is still the same: X is greater than Y.

You missed the point of my comment. It makes more sense to single out the US if they are the only one with much lower prices than everything else, instead of talking about every country where it is more expensive - in this case, most if not all countries in the world.

It's the exception to the rule that is interesting, and in this case, the exception is the US.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#44

Post by gregsq »

stevoski wrote: post #35
gregsq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting a business in Australia is ridiculously expensive. In the UK it's £20 ( last time I looked ). In Australia it was $900 or so when I looked. Lots of regulations on this and that. My pet theory is that it started out militaristically and has stayed that way ever since.

I think this is wrong. Australia ranks as the 2nd easiest country to start business, according to this site: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings It is $900 or more to incorporate a company. Starting a business can be much less, and can be done in a day. In any case, this does not explain Adobe charging Australians $1000+ more on every sale of a certain package.

I was answering the first part of the grandparent. It's easy to start a self employed business, but I'm referring to limited liability companies in the UK and incorporated companies in Australia. Pretty obvious really, that's why the UK is a nation of small shopkeepers. It's simple to do.

Has nothing to do with the cost of software, except in respect of margins, which I and others have mentioned are kept at near parity in the large retail sector, a sector with somewhat unstressed economies of scale.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#45

Post by highlander »

This reminds me of working for a software tools company in the late 90's, selling IDEs and metrics tools to investment banks and telcos. One day, a potential customer called to ask about the price of a license. "1500", my boss said. "1500 what?", asked the customer. "Where are you?". It's a good thing the customer wasn't in Japan...

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#46

Post by caf »

jacques_chester wrote: post #14
mattvot wrote: post #2

Can someone explain why tech stuff in general is quite a bit more expensive in Australia comparatively?

Two main reasons. 1. Australia is a small market, so for a lot of things there are poor economies of scale and/or cozy oligopolies. 2. Exchange rates. Then along came: 3. Artificial market segmentation. Region encoding, per-country versions and so on. There's no technical reason for this, it's done simply because (thanks AUSFTA) it can be done. The artificial segmentation didn't used to be a big problem until the AUD…

You've got to wonder why they haven't tried artificial market segmentation between US States yet.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#48

Post by djt »

Nursie wrote: post #41
relix wrote: post #6

These articles take the wrong perspective - it's not that Australia is much more expensive in tech matters, it's that the US is much more cheap. I don't know where the recent Australia-specific articles are coming from, but it's been like this since as long as I can remember - that the US is much more cheap than any other country I'm familiar with for tech stuff, including Australia, but also almost every other count…

Australia is extremely expensive for a lot of stuff. Europe is too, but less so (having lived in both). Part of this is that the AUD has appreciated in value so much over the last few years, and retailers are just not willing to drop their prices in line with the new purchasing power of the dollar. They also haven't caught up with the modern world in a lot of ways, considering that they still have a captive audience…

Apple stuff is still about 10-20% more expensive and the refurbs are about 10% and older versions.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#49

Post by brotchie »

gregsq wrote: post #28
Drakim wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that setting up shop is quite expensive in Australia due to a number of factors, and that the online prices is matched up to the retail price to avoid hurting profits.

Starting a business in Australia is ridiculously expensive. In the UK it's £20 ( last time I looked ). In Australia it was $900 or so when I looked. Lots of regulations on this and that. My pet theory is that it started out militaristically and has stayed that way ever since.

Incorporating a company is relatively cheap ($450AUD) and the last time I did it, it was done You can then register with the ATO (Summary: In Australia <$500 and <20minutes gets you a Pty. Ltd. from your couch at home.

Re: It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia

#50

Post by Nursie »

djt wrote: post #48
Nursie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is extremely expensive for a lot of stuff. Europe is too, but less so (having lived in both). Part of this is that the AUD has appreciated in value so much over the last few years, and retailers are just not willing to drop their prices in line with the new purchasing power of the dollar. They also haven't caught up with the modern world in a lot of ways, considering that they still have a captive audience…

Apple stuff is still about 10-20% more expensive and the refurbs are about 10% and older versions.

Really?

Because price difference was always effectively a rounding error when I calculated US price + Australian GST vs Australian price. I haven't looked for a while though, having moved back to the UK last year.

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