Ripped off in Australia

[Andrewm]

Hi All

Anyone else feel ripped off by Australian distributors. I want a biscuit joiner, Dewalt 682, less than US$200 (AUS$300) in the states, nearly $600 here, who is making all the money. Its a pity they use 110V (otherwise I would bring one in), surely that cant be the cause of the price difference. A lot of other places use 220/240V.

I refuse to pay the price and be ripped off.

Will just have to make do with the router and slot cutter.

Cheers Andrew

[Tom O Donnell]

Hi Andrew
Sorry you think you are being ripped off with the biscuit Machine and reverting to the router and slot cutter. Regretfully Andrew you can not use the slot cutter to insert biscuits into the face of the board if you wish to put in a shelf. There is a way to insert biscuits with the aid of the template guide and a 4mm cutter.
Tom

[This message has been edited by Tom O Donnell (edited 19 November 1999).]

[Shane Watson]

I would wonder if it is your supplier who is doing the ripping off? I have this model biscuit joiner and from memory only paid $300-$400 Aus. Might I suggest you do some phoneing around and see what you can come up with.
Either that or I got one hell of a deal!
And I might add that the machine paid itself off in no time flat! So I would have been prepared to pay the $600 if neccessary. See how you go. And keep us up to date.

Cheers
Shane!!

[ubeaut]

You are right Andrew. We do seem to get ripped off in Australia. Try buying carving tools here for under $40, the same ones can be purchased in Switzerland (where they are made) for just a few dollars no wonder there are so many carvers in Europe. The bigger the company the bigger the rip off, or so it would appear. When De Walt was De Walt and Elu was Elu and Black & Dacker was selling orange crap (which insidentally got a lot of people started into woodwork) there was competition and reasonable prices. Now they are all the same and much of their need to compete has gone. Build the company bigger, cut costs and overheads, increase profits and stick it up the consumer. seems to be the catch phrase.

However there are some pretty sound reasond why stuff costs so much more here but the bottom line usually comes back to greed. However you will probably find that there is not much change from A$200 - $250 by the time the tool hits the Aussie shores (depending on the exchange rate) and then it gets slugged with import duty and tax, plus profit for the importer, plus frofit for the distributor, plus profit for the end seller, plus advertising, plus warrantee costs, plus freight in Australia, plus, plus, plus, etc. Get the picture.
I am speaking from an exporters point of view. You should see the price of our polishes by the time they hit the shops in the USA. What wholesales from here for around A$10 (including freight, packaging, documentation and insurance) sells for around A$38-A$40 over there. And I can tell you that none of that extra $28 per item, ends up in my pocket.

Here's a thought. Give the glorified Black & Decker a miss and look at a cheaper brand or even one of the very, very cheap but not nasty ones that attatch to your angle grinder.

I take it you haven't visited our index page for a while or had a good look at what is there. www.ubeaut.com.au/index2.htm (http://www.ubeaut.com.au/index2.htm) Try this link to Kato Trading. They have a pretty good add-on for a fraction of the price and I believe a real beauty coming out soon. www.ubeaut.com.au/kato.htm (http://www.ubeaut.com.au/kato.htm)

Hope this is of some help to you.

Cheers
Neil http://ubb.ubeaut.com.au/ubb/smile.gif

??? Is there an orange B&D lurking inside every De Walt???

[Rod Smith]

Hi Andrew. I agree 100%. I believe some cost increase is necessary but the price of most tools here is outrageous. If you compare disposable incomes in the US and Oz you can see why so many home workshops over there are so well equipped. Theres a policy here of sell for as much as you can get I reckon. A friend of mine imports from the US quite a number of different items and he absolutely murders his oppositions prices, not WW stuff though. This is particularly true where only 1 or 2 companies sell these products. By the way if you don't already have a slot cutter to suit for biscuits (5/32") theres one in a carbatec set that works well for me. The set sells for about $70, great value. See ya. Rod

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[Andrewm]

Thanks for the replies.

Shane please let me know where you bought yours. The best I can do is $555 in Canberra and $530 in Sydney.

Neil I had not noticed the info on the KATRO product, sounds interesting and even with the price of an angle grinder included is about half the cost.

Andrew