The Norwegian Guy said:
Okay, let's go.
For example.
Seymour Duncan Hot Rails
New in Norway: 211 USD
New in USA: 69 USD
This goes for almost every pickup. Even guitars. a 2000 USD guitar from america would cost about 4500 USD in Norway - and that is NOT because of taxes and fees when they import the gear.
Thank god for america!
HALLELUJAH! :rock-on:
Similar situation to Australia, I'm afraid to say.
The ripoffs, er, mark ups, by our retailers is obscene.
Two items I recently bought were the
* Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI
and the
* Peterson Stroborack Tuner
In the case of the Tech 21 DI, I actually talked to a retailer in my hometown about one they had. He was proud in telling me he could do a good deal, for cash, if I paid about Aus$500 for it. It's a DI box for goodness sake's! Even though I had no idea at that stage what they were worth, I knew that was an obscene price to pay for something that merely translated the signal up to line standard.
Went home, firstly checked the Australian sellers online (not eBay tho). He was right, Aus$500 was about the mark for buying one of these -
from an Australian retailer. But searching further, I found that if I could get this item from the USA it would cost HALF of that.
Hardest part was finding a retailer online from the USA who would ship the item Internationally. It seems old trading practices of Distributor teritory play a large part in terms and conditions of what retailers can or cannot do when they sell items from a manufacturer. Most manufacturers across the board, will limit the retailer to their own country and in some cases even their own State.
End result was: I found a retailer who did sell internationally and the landed cost of the DI Box was Aus$277, delivered to my door! :hello2:
Similar story to the Peterson tuner. I am STILL waiting to hear back from one Australian online reatiler who offered these on order, on a price enquiry. Most simply do not stock them and only offer the smaller Peterson tuners - if at all. The retailers probably hold the belief that the old Korg and Boss tuners are 'good enough' for Australian musos! (and can source them from the one or two Distributors that wholsesale them other musical gear, rather than having to hook up with yet another Distributor for the Peterson gear). Landed cost to my door for the Peterson was just under Aus$500, but I can guarantee you that it would easily be double that if I had somehow found a retailer to buy one from.
Australia has a 10% GST (value added tax) to slap on most goods, so if Custom had taken an interest in my packages whilst they were in transit, well, I would have had to pay extra for that. But our Customs people tend to take an interest in packages that are valued over the converted value of Aus$1000 when the package comes through the post, so if you keep within those parameters - and don't start behaving like a trader - usually Customs stay in the background...
And, of course, there's the concern about warranty issues (simply put, I'm so far away, it would probably prove unviable to lodge any warranty claim back to the online retailer) as opposed to an Australian warranty (but that would suually mean that I'd drop the item off to the retailer and then they'd handle the shipping back to the Distributor....). But if the goods are as good quality as they appear straight out of the box, I doubt I will have problems with them for many years.
The other issue that Aussie musos have that may be similar to the Norwegian people, is the availability of current technology.
By the time gear hits Aussie retail stores the equipment is about a year old. Often you simply cannot get current pedals that are the current craze overseas, for example. Or software that may be a bit specialised.
In the days when EVH made all that noise about harmonisers, I was lucky to be doing some roadie work around gigging musos and they were pulling their hair out trying to find a harmoniser that could do the stuff that Eddie was doing - people in the pubs were demanding new sounds that they (the musos) couldn't replicate.
Ditto for the recording industry too. - there'd be a piece of equipment that would start appearing on some hit songs and everyone would want to use that piece of gear, but most Aussie studios couldn't find them. The Distributors for that manufacturer couldn't even get them imported for the likes of Alberts Studios or Studios 301 (EMI) !! It took, for example, ages for any studio to get a Lexicon Digital reverb in their outboard racks, when the New Romance era was in full swing (early 80s).
This lack of current technology in Australia, or at least the ability to quickly source it, is one of the main motivations for Aussie acts recording overseas.
They do not want to put out a recording in 6 months time, that will sound like it was recorded two years ago! And they have a better chance of contracting a top line producer, as I was told by one recording engineer, that sh*t hot record producers wouldn't attempt conducting sessions in Australia if their favourite pieces of equipment are not available to use, same goes for the top engineers too.
Thank goodness we now have the internet to double check the bs that we are spun by the retailers. But... sometimes it is near impossible to get around the local market stranglehold. or the manufacturer's dictatory attitude.
For example, Australia uses 240v for its' domestic appliances. And a 3 pin plug that isn't used elsewhere. Luckily the maufcaturers are starting to manufacture gear that utilises the universal plug into the gear, and a transformer that can handle the higher voltages and/or an automatic or even manual swapover to the higher voltage. But I am wary of buying gear from overseas & double checked both piecs of gear that I recently bought to ensure I could use them at home (the DI works off the small 3.5mm plug 9v while, the Peterson uses a universal plug and automatically switches up to accept the 240v).
Also, on the subject of availability, buying Rickenbackers in Australia involves importing the gear from Japan - at a greatly inflated value. There is no local distributor, there hasn't been one for some time, Rickenbackers are in short supply worldwide, the company itself is very hard on retailers and will not allow international sales except for those sanctioned to export to certain markets (like the Japanese and Asian ones are allowed to sell to Australia and Pacific Islands), and there are people screaming for their favourite Ricky here!
.