Australians charged more for same goods online

By LAUREN INGRAM

AUSTRALIAN shoppers are being forced to pay higher prices than their overseas counterparts for many retail goods despite the high Australian dollar.

When comparing prices for retail goods such as books, clothing, cosmetics, electronics and games, Australians are paying up to 65% more for products in online stores than shoppers in the United States or Britain.

Lonely Planet, a large travel guidebook company, is guilty of this. Shoppers can visit the Lonely Planet website and be charged 58% more for a guidebook when they enter their country as Australia on the site.

When shoppers visit lonelyplanet.com/shop the prices for guidebooks are marketed as the cheaper US prices. However once selecting the book and going to the online checkout shoppers must choose the country they wish the book shipped to. Once the consumer selects Australia from the menu book prices rise around 53-58%.

A typical Lonely Planet guidebook such as the ‘England’ guidebook is $24.99 USD for US shoppers and jumps to $42.99 AUD for Australian shoppers. This is an equivalent increase of around $22 USD or 54%.

Australian guidebooks are more expensive even though all Lonely Planet guidebooks are manufactured in a third party offshore country, where the cost of producing the guidebook is the same.

Adam Bennett from Lonely Planet Australia had no explanation other than the decision was made by head office.

“The market determines the price in any situation… [our guidebooks] are similarly priced to others in the Australian market” he said.

The problem is also prevalent in the gaming industry, where Australian consumers are regularly subjected to the highest mark ups.

Even though digital distribution should have stopped this increase, Australian gamers still pay 65-70% more for a game than US gamers.

David Byrnes says it is gaming companies deliberately charging Australians more for no reason.

“Weep at our price gorging,” he tweeted. “At one time (2001) it could have been understandable. The US$ was worth twice the AUS$.”

For example, the recently released X-Box and PC game The Witcher 2 was released digitally by gaming company Projekt RED. This meant the game was simply purchased at the online store and then downloaded to the consumer’s X-Box or computer. Yet Australian purchasers had to pay $70 AUD to the US $35 USD, an increase of 64%.

This is despite the Australian dollar strengthening in the past decade and now valuing beyond parity with the US dollar.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s the price difference for products in the Australian market was blamed on a low Australian dollar, which forced prices from US companies up.

In April 2001 the Australian dollar hit its lowest point against the US dollar with 1 Australian dollar buying 47.75 US cents. During the next few years the Australian dollar slowly began climbing higher against the US dollar until the Global financial crisis began in 2008.

After the Global Financial Crisis began in 2008, the Australian dollar began to climb faster against the US dollar. It hit 98.49 in late 2008, before falling lower in 2009. In July 2011 the Australian dollar was trading at an all time high of 1 Australian dollar to 1.108 US dollars.

This means companies can no longer claim that the weak Australian dollar is forcing them to charge more for products.

Even shoppers from the United Kingdom pay less than Australian consumers, regardless of the fact that the Australian dollar is weak against the British pound.

M.A.C cosmetics are a US company that sells makeup at 40-50% more in Australia than in Britain or the United States.

A MAC lipstick costs $14.50 USD, £13.50 GBP or $36 AUD on the respective countries MAC websites, a mark up of around 40%.

Jaelle Foot, an English backpacker currently travelling in Australia, was surprised at how much cosmetic prices were compared to the UK.

“I was surprised at how expensive it was here,” she said. “Especially because the pound buys more Australian dollars.”

However, with companies making so much profit off Australian consumers it is unlikely that this price gouging will stop anytime soon.

MAC cosmetics had not responded to a request for comment at the time this story was written.