Vendors responsible for ‘Aussie Tax’: Choice

It is obscene

I wanted to buy Civ 5 on Steam, it was $70 if you are an Aussie.

If you then route via a U.S. based proxy server Steam is suddenly happy to sell you the exact same game for $30.

Needless to say that I didn't pay 70 bucks but most folk don't have the ability to bypass idiotic pricing rorts in this manner.

Rental retail costs and their use for online pricing

"Choice tested the widespread argument that Australian retail rents account for the price difference by looking at the differentials for software products, and found that the price differentials for online stores with no shopfronts (48 percent) were nearly identical to the recommended retail price differences for the physical products (49 percent). ®"

That doesn't amount to rental cost NOT affecting the actual price though, all it amounts to is retailers thinking "we can get away with ripping off at the storefront based on rental costs so we may as well try it on with the online model as well" Doesn't actually matter if there is no rental cost when consumers have become so accustomed to paying for it as a part of overpriced purchases already.

the problem with digital online distribution

I have refused to buy most digital content online when it is priced the way it is and is restricted the way it currently is.

Why anyone would buy a movie on say the PSN network (which has higher compression, is DRM protected to only play on your one brand of device as well as costs you your own bandwidth to download) instead of spending LESS money and buying a physical Blu-ray disc (which isn't as compressed, which you can take and use anywhere as well as actually re-selling it when you're finished with it) surprises me as the only current advantage to "digital-online" seems to be the "speed of delivery" which in itself requires you to be already paying a decent monthly sum for your internet connection.

It is a shame because all this online digital delivery could have benefitted both the sellers AND the end customers but the way the sellers decided to price things the only one who it really ends up helping is the seller. The end customer is often actually worse-off buying digitally online especially when you consider DRM and the second hand re-sale market completely disappearing/not even an option for goods bought digitally.

It is also a shame because the digital download model DOES actually work in many cases, I have bought plenty of software online, direct from the developers (usually smaller developers) who are more than happy to charge me the same price as their US customers, I'm glad that I'm not being ripped off for simply being 'outside' of the US, but I'm even gladder to see 100% of my money go direct to the developer and not some middleman retailer who adds nothing to the product outside of controlling its availability.

Adobe products the same price or cheaper in Australia!!!

Man I'd love to know which ones, cause they're certainly not the ones I use and require on a daily basis. Those ones have a huge "Australia tax" on them locally.

The only Adobe products I can think of which cost the same here as in the US are PDF reader and Flash player...cause they're both given away FREE like a virus.

I'd guess the "cheaper here" Adobe products are probably something already cheap/simple like Lightroom, but for the most part, the actual products that Adobe make most of their "bread and Butter" on (CS packages) are vastly overpriced locally in comparison to the US no matter how Adobe PR or research firms like to spin it.

red tape

100% agreed on the vendors being bloodsucking roaches. I recently asked a friend at The Economist why the price of the digital edition was higher in Australia than any other country on Earth, and his response was "because we can".

I wonder if the survey took into account the ridiculous duties and tariffs imposed by the Australian government on imports. I imagine that is also a significant factor in the cost of things here. I have never heard a satisfactory response to the question "Why do we have to pay import duties?"

There is only one way to fight this, and that is to get a my us account and buy overseas

Taxes? What taxes?

I see people above talking about tariffs and duties - please give details. As far as I'm aware there are no duties on software or hardware. Nor on electronics or books or DVDs. The only things I can think of off the of my head that attract duty are alcohol and tobacco. You can't blame the government for this one, no matter how much you'd like to.

This is down to the importers, exclusive agency agreements and the fucked up nature of distribution and retail in the country. Do us all a favour - buy everything you can OS until these clowns either wise up or collapse under their own weight.

Bah humbug.

The solution.

Capitalism's pricing is 'what will the user pay'? Fine. But they can't be allowed to create an artificial supply monopoly, by (for example) refusing to offer warranty or service on items sourced via parallel imports. It should be illegal for them to do that.