Cost of spidies in OZ

[McCraggen]

Hey guys,

Why is it that spidie knives here are at least twice the price of the american market?

Cheers.

 

[gadgetgeek]

Shipping, exchange rate, and up until recently risk of lost shipments. Its not great, but its the way it is. Some brands are worse, far worse.

 

[The Deacon]

How do Australian the prices of other American brands compare? Are they all about twice the price, or can you get a Benchmade, Buck, or Chris Reeve knife for about the same we Yanks would pay. I suspect the answer is that they're all just about equally expensive and that the main problems are that:

1. Your government chooses to tax imported knives heavily.

The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBPS) collects GST (Good and Services Tax) on taxable importations. The GST payable is 10% of the value of the taxable importation.

The value of taxable importation is the sum of:

the customs value of the goods
any customs duty payable
the amount paid or payable to transport the goods to their place of consignment in Australia
the insurance cost for that transport

You not only PAY duty, you pay tax on the duty.

2. Australian knife dealers don't experience the same level of competition as those here, so there's less incentive to discount heavily.

 

[sinkko]

i would be happy to pay aussie inflated prices for a s110v blurple pm2... if only dealer here could get some

 

[skyhorse]

The Australian people are being hammered by regulations, customs fees . Hopefully this will change someday.

 

[Armadew]

I feel your pain!

 

[Chris Larrikin]

The importers and distributors also add a mark up. In some cases the dealers here pay more wholesale than individual retail customers in the US pay. A couple of importers pretty well had a monopoly until recently.

I am fairly sure that we have a higher cost of living; combined with the exchange rate and other factors we are bound to pay more.

 

[harronek]

With the recent relaxation of knife import laws the customer here in OZ finally has an avenue to circumvent the middlemen both government and individual who are queued up to grab your money .
Distance , taxes , exchange rate , market size , retailer markup and ignorance all play a part .
I mentioned somewhere recently about how I bought a Delica 4 from an online seller in the USA for $87.00 au delivered to my door . Same knife in my local shop $138.00 .
Zen imports Spyderco into Australia and in my opinion does very little to further the brand in the market place , they have their finger in many pies , and Spyderco isn't a priority when you consider all the other products they market .
The changing and relaxation of the import laws should be of a huge benefit to Spyderco's sales figures and market share , but if people feel like that their wallets are being taken advantage of then Spyderco will remain a little known and understood knife brand outside of the world of knife aficionados .
Also you have to remember we only have a population of about 24 million , think logically , how many of them are in the market for a pocket knife costing anywhere from $100 to $500 . I wouldn't think its actually that many people .

Ken

 

[gadgetgeek]

I would also like to mention that even though australia does have a higher cost of living in some ways, its not in all, and we also have a much higher minimum wage than the US, so if you look straight at hours worked flipping burgers, it doesn't look near as bad.

 

[brownshoe]

I would also like to mention that even though australia does have a higher cost of living in some ways, its not in all, and we also have a much higher minimum wage than the US, so if you look straight at hours worked flipping burgers, it doesn't look near as bad.

Minimum wage in the US varies by state and people I know who flip burgers make more than the minimum in the US.

 

[Sonnydaze]

I had a chance for a job in Perth long ago...shoulda taken it. Although, I'd be really upset when they told me to NOT carry my guns...or even own them. Not too enthusiastic about that.
(deleted 2nd Amendment tirade; don't wanna get binged.)
Point to Ponder... but yes, that is a great country "down there."
I've sold a couple of fixed blades to blokes down there...they were enough "used" to be able to label them as used and I guess that helped them come in a bit cheaper.

 

[DocT]

From what I hear from my friends in OZ, knives in general are looked down upon (like firearms!) by the powers that be. In some places they are down right illegal. A carry over from the Brits, I reckon. Anyway, I wonder if they have high import duties as a deterrent? I know in SEA, anything labeled knife and America (also former British) gets socked for a huge import duty. I can order and ship overnight from the USA and still save a lot of money over buying locally.

 

[gadgetgeek]

I don't think its any sort of import duty, just a long history of slow boat imports having to be priced based on an exchange rate estimate. E-commerce here is pretty poor compared to the US and Canada, with a lot of pretty large stores either having only a place-holder front page, or a decade old web-store. A lot of imports in general come through only a few companies, so the competition is low, almost all sporting goods are sold via one retail chain. And because the population is lower, there is a larger separation between the urban and very small rural populations. Aussies also seem to be very willing to take the cheap option. So fighting the knockoffs has a price.

Harronek, while Zen might not be perfect, they were part of the coalition that helped get the import rules changed, and were helping Sal get more models into Australia before that. Plus they do also handle a lot of warranty work that would have been nearly impossible under the old rules.