There's a lot of talk in the news today about a group of retailers - led of course by whinging billionaire Gerry Harvey - who have begun an advertising campaign lobbying the Australian government to attach a Goods and Services Tax to online purchases from overseas. Currently, a GST is only applied to orders over $1000AUD.
Gerry Harvey has spent his entire career getting rich by jacking up the prices of his electrical goods to two, three or four times the price of the same item overseas. He raged against Kogan - an online electrical retail store - because he said it was unfair that they could afford to provide lower prices as they didn't have the overheads of physical stores. Gerry's all about "fairness" when it suits him, but I wonder what he would say if the government imposed some restriction on how much of a mark up he could apply to his goods? I imagine he'd be singing a different song then.
For us Australian beauty bloggers, it's not so much TVs as makeup that is the issue at hand. Yesterday I watched a video by camiloveskiwi, where she talked about Chanel Mat Lumiere being expensive in the UK - costing about £28. That's equivalent to about $44AUD. In the US, it's about $54US.
In Australia, Mat Lumiere costs about $75AUD. WHY???
So, Gerry Harvey - you and David Jones and Myer and that other moaning billionaire Solomon Lew, and the rest of the retail giants who have had a great run in an isolated country that up until a few years ago had no choice but to pay your vastly over-inflated prices can just SUCK IT. Because now we have choices, and we're going to use them.
I was reading that today too! sooo annoying! I'm not a fan of Xenophone but i like how he said that the way Gerry's acting is like Goliath pretending to be David.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'd also like to rant about the price of Nars. Eyeshadow duos on their website are $US32, with the current dollar conversion it's about the sme $AUD33, so why is Mecca Cosmetica selling them for $78AUD???!!
Ugh, don't even get me started on NARS. $62 for a blush? I don't think so!
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more, as you know! It really annoys me that these huge, profitable companies want to stop us buying overseas. Reduce your prices and we'll buy here!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAs you know I could go about this forever so I am limiting myself to just one issue ... maybe I could tolerate the markup if the range of products and shades were there but we don't get all the products (and most often all the shades) in a range either.
ReplyDeleteSome offenders that come to mind include Covergirl single eye shadows, L'oreal voluminous mascara, Olay daily facials, Maybelline's smooth mousse foundation and the falsies mascara, and Neutrogena's healthy skin foundation.
If they wont come here then where the hell else would we get them? What do u have to say about that Gerry?
Bugger. I wrote a really long comment, and then lost my Internet connection when I clicked on Post Comment. ARGH!! Now I can't remember what it was that I wrote >.<
ReplyDeleteI watched the telly about this issue this evening, and it got my (and my husband's) blood boiling. How much overhead and tax do these Aussie retailers have to pay to justify the over-inflated prices they are charging? I would love to see someone do a price comparison with these extra charges, just to see if the massive price hike is justifiable. Because I just don't see it.
Consumers are not stupid. We have the buying power, we buy from whoever sells us the cheapest. It's common sense.
If you're not reducing your prices, stop all that bloody whinging. Don't insult our intelligence.
Haha! Great final paragraph. The irony of the Harvey Norman- Kogan situation is that Kogan is using many of the same business strategies that Harvey Norman used to bust into the market in the 1960s.
ReplyDeleteAs for allowing this madness to be formalised as a bill through parliament, I don't think either party is in a position to become *more* unpopular.
Even if they do add the GST to products bought online they'll still be cheaper than what we get charged here, so it won't make any difference.
ReplyDeleteUntil a week ago or so I thought the conversion rate for USD and AUD was hugely different, because the makeup is always so much more expensive in AUD. I didn't realize they are almost exactly the same right now, that is crazy. If there are US products you want, you should do a blog post and see if anyone wants to swap with you or would let you paypal them the money and they'd ship you the items. I've done this before and there are loads of other bloggers who'd be willing also, I'm sure. :)
ReplyDeleteCouldn't have said it better myself. Screw you Gerry Harvey, perhaps if your stores offered better service and reasonable prices you might not have so much to complain about. Or maybe if he didn't spend so much of his time bemoaning how hard on shows like A Current Affair or Today Tonight he would have more time to adjust his business model to something slightly less insulting to the Australian public. It must be *so hard* to be rich :/
ReplyDeletei landed on this post from beautyholics anonymous on the same topic. are retailer really that stupid not knowing why we buy onlines / overseas? those retailers should do their maths. even if we pay 10% gst on those online goods (which i'm totally against) it's still cheaper than buying from them. if they have to jack up the price due to million kinds of taxes and other overheads, then they should lobby against those ridiculous tax!
ReplyDeleteHEAR, HEAR!
ReplyDeleteI TOTALLY agree. It makes me so mad that a clever consumer should be punished for being clever and for being in Australia.
ReplyDeleteI always laugh at the UK and US beauty bloggers talking about paying $10 for a mascara is pricey...I can only think of 2 brands (savvy by DB and Essence) off the top of my head that you can buy mascara for under 10 bucks in australia. Maybelline mascaras are all now $19-21..thats double and then some of the US!
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