The Aussie dollar hit parity for the first time ever over the weekend. One for one. 100 cents for 100 cents. Then it dropped back down a bit. As I type this, it’s currently sitting at 98.57 US cents, but financial people all over the web reckon we’re going to crack the dollar mark again soon. So now’s the time to start planning your US gadget purchases to take advantage of the exchange rate! And we want your tips…
Image credit: Michael Scott Flickr
There are a few online retailers that we hardly need mentioning. Amazon, for example, is so ingrained with the idea of online shopping that you should already be taking advantage of the strong Aussie dollar by buying a heap of stuff there anyway. ThinkGeek is another US store that needs no introduction to Gizmodians for gadget bargains.
But what else? What stores would you recommend to other geeks looking to save a buck or two with a strong Aussie dollar? Share your suggestions in the comments below.
unfazed
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:41 PMAmazon is a bitch to buy things off, sellers rarely post outside the US to Australia, maybe they should start exporting things to bank on the exchange rate
jamie
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 12:12 AMhttp://www.jr.com I am from the States here on a temp work visa, I have bought A LOT of items from this company and they will ship it anywhere.
Sicarius123
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:42 PMI just purchased an Asus VX6 netbook from bhphotovideo for less than the 1215 costs through local stores :).
Sud
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:43 PMI just pre-ordered the new wireless Kobo from the american borders store.
It’s 140 USD, but only 151 AUD including delivery. Pre-ordering it here is 200 AUD.
http://www.borders.com/online/store/MediaView_ereaders
Sud
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:44 PMOh! And you don’t need to create an account, so the whole process takes only a couple of minutes :)
Kraiden
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:48 PMI’m gonna go in the opposite direction of this, and have a quick rant at places that still mark up stuff despite our aussie dollar being strong.
I’m looking at you, Steam. Fallout: New Vegas for $90 US, when it’s $40 in the US store.
Rod
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:17 PMThe price of third-party games on Steam is generally set by the publisher, not Valve. So your gaze of contempt should probably be shifted over towards Bethesda and/or Namco Bandai.
Luke Eller
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:50 PMIt’d be cool if Valve could exercise some control over greedy publishers. Come to think of it, is there anything from stopping us buying on the US store?
Phil
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 7:22 PMRod, www. jr.com doesn’t seem to allow shipping to Australia. I tried for a Lumix camera, and a somewhat more bulky kitchenaid ice cream maker. Offered only USA and Canada as options.
Ben Dy
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:31 PMYep, Technet Subs are the same..
Christopher Watson
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:57 PMNot even just Steam, the gaming retail industry in general. When we were at $0.50US I understood games beings $100 (approx twice what they were in the US), but over the past few years and our $ went up, so have the game prices.
We are being royally shafted in this regard.
Richard Clement
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:04 PMThe worst offenders for this would have to be Bose. Phone kit or spare headphone pads for the QuietComfort headphones are US$30 at bose.com but they wont send to Oz – here these items are AU$90!
matt
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:16 PMif you know someone in the US, i’m pretty sure you can at least gift a game from a us account to an Aussie account.
don’t bitch at retailers here. punish them. and at the same time, get stuff for half price. i.e. give them the shaft and buy from O.S. amazon.co.uk a pretty good for blurays, the added bonus being that they are the same region as us.
tell your friends too.
however, I don’t think it IS the retailers, as others have hinted with steam: its really really greedy distributors, publishers and the manufactures them selves that think they can get away with it. so really, that being the case, I feel sorry for retailers.
Greg
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:50 PMBoxee Box, if you are that way inclined.
poedgirl
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 12:30 PMIf you’re after a Boxee box, take a look at the Apple Store right now. They’re selling the old AppleTV boxes for AU$199 or US$149 (depending on where you order from). Much cheaper than the D-Link ones coming soon.
Matty
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:50 PMI thought Amazon won’t ship outside USA for Games?
gargravarr
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:55 PMIt’s not the first time ever, just the first time since it was floated in 1983. When we went to Hawaii in 1973, the dollar bought about $1.20US
Will
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:10 PMDeal extreme, for all your random cheap chinese made gadgetry
Jack
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:18 PMhttp://www.ccs.com
Great for skateboarding stuff and clothes.
Jon
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:25 PMThe new Amazon Kindle is an excellent deal – US$139 for the wifi only version, +$50 for 3G – I recently ordered one and am loving it.
Land’s End for clothing (I get most of my business shirts from there).
Can’t go past DealExtreme and its ilk for bits and pieces – cables, adapters, replacement parts, etc.
Sean Tam
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:58 PMgot a bunch of stuff from thinkgeek last week, had to wear the initial 20 something dollar shipping fee but subsequent items in the cart did not increase the shipping by much. $10 voucher helped as well and they gave me a free t-shirt for halloween, glow in the dark Inky ftw!
ash
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:35 PMvideo games… they’re about $60 brand new latest release and as much as $30 for a few weeks/months old… ebay is your friend. i usually get my games for half the aus price and that was before the price parity. the other thing i’ve gotten is headphones… i got my rs170s for $120 AUD after converion… plus $20 for p+h… which is in total less than half au price.
Uncle Bob
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:35 PMThat’s it, send your money overseas. Don’t support local industry.
Remember, if you do this then should not ever expect any local support for anything in that industry. Don’t expect to have local retail, or distributor staff to be paid to offer support.
You NEVER get to complain about any local support. It is an all in or out situation.
Support it or don’t have anything to do with it.
TheKZA
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:35 PMThere are people who take national pride to a bit of an extreme, and good for them for sticking to their convictions.
However, it’s not right to criticise others who would rather get the best value for their money, for the best products (unfortunately, Australia does not provide many quality products, especially in technology) especially at this very opportune time.
Peter Zaharis
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:41 PM1) This wouldn’t be an issue if companies didn’t extort us on price simply for being Australian. This is capitalism at work. Customers go for the best price they can get. If you can get the same thing cheaper why wouldn’t you?
2) It also wouldn’t be an issue if I could get what I wanted here. Given that I cant (and believe me I’ve looked) I will happily go to where I can get it.
Ian
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:54 PM@Uncle Bob: It has nothing to do with supporting local or foreign industry. It has to do with the ‘Australia Tax’.
A $100USD (hypothetical) product should not cost $150AUD. Plain and simple. Especially when I can import it for $115 – shipped.
I would accept $130AUD for shipping costs and GST on a $100USD product but no more.
Until Aussie based brands(eg Sony, Apple)/importers/retailers get it through their thick skulls that most consumers are not idiots, people will continue to import themselves to save money.
It will happen eventually but until then, expect direct imports.
Cheers
Sicarius123
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:59 PMInternational warranty my friend.
Oh, I’ll be purchasing memory for my imported laptop to upgrade it locally.
This laptop is not available locally, all local offerings are grey imports, and local offerings are priced up to $300 higher than the direct import price with longer shipping times.
Derryn
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:04 PMBuying from the US actually puts downward pressure on the Australian dollar making Australian goods cheaper for US consumers. So by buying overseas you’re actually helping local industries in a round-a-bout way.
Pranoy Ghosh
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:24 PMsince when do we have local support for anything? Every time I call a support line it either goes to India or somewhere in S-E Asia…the reason we are taking advantage of the US dollar is because Australian retail prices are just not competitive enough
Art Nau
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:26 PMall the ‘local’ support outsourced to Asia (so much for local industry support from the brands)
and that premium dollar that u pay for physical support hardly worse it
so stop your propaganda and give us competitive prices
global market creates new rules
Richard Djordjevic
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:51 PMCry me a river. If local retailers/distributors supported the buyers by lowering prices when the AU dollar was stronger then people would have no reason to look overseas to source the same products cheaper.
Tom McQuarrie
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 1:02 AMPricing is all about supply and demand. The big players who charge more for items in AU do so because there’s simply less people in Australia to buy from them. They still need to provide the business infrastructure for warranties, support, marketing etc, so really every sale costs them more when they’re working from a smaller population base such as ours. Of course this doesn’t really apply to the digital delivery of computer games such as Steam :P
As for pressuring aussie retailers to push prices down, retail already isn’t particularly profitable. In fact excluding some of the massive coles myer conglomerates, the majority of Australian retailers lose money 11 months of the year. When businesses do well, they can afford to pay staff well, to keep Australian staff on rather than going offshore, unemployment decreases, more tax dollars are generated, and we can continue to live in a nation with a pretty spectacular quality of life.
With that in mind, I’m happy to pay a little more, knowing that really, I’m getting a lot back in return :)
Richard Djordjevic
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 3:16 PMSure but there is “paying a little more” and theres paying 150% to 200% of the price you see overseas for certain goods, as some people have posted here already.
It’s not true for everything, but in certain areas we are been taken for a ride.
blueevo
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 7:07 PMBob keep paying inflated prices have a look around and see that we are quite often getting ripped off buying electronics or games locally.
For example,
Halo Reach in EB games: $120 AUD
Halo Reach from the US including Shipping: $70 AUD
Thats just under double. Can you please tell me why they deserve my business? If it was say $80 locally id understand and get it local but its an absolute joke that its $50 more.
Nearly every game is like this.
Uncle Bob
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 8:47 PMI am not saying don’t buy overseas, I am just saying understand the consequences.
If you choose to pay 120 for Halo at EB, your loss, there is always a local guy that will get lower than RRP. Shop around for sure.
I do purchase overseas, and like Will it will be for something I never expect have or need 1 bit of support or info from anyone local.
But as for Gizmodo approaching local importes like Dlink or Sennheiser to advertise on their site then saying buy overseas to the same people those are trying to sell to, that is seriously ludicrous.
Dan Halford
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 6:17 AMI’ve had exactly the same thing with aftermarket bits for my motorbike. I recently priced the aftermarket aftermarket exhaust system I want from a couple of US retailers after getting a quote from my local bike dealer. From the dealer, $6700 + fitting. From the US, $1850 including shipping. And I can fit the damn thing myself.
I would prefer to buy from local businesses, and when the price is within 30% or so of what I can import something for, I will do. But I’m not paying $4850 just for the privilege of having the local dealer order something for me.
And the real joke: if the dealer ordered it, it’d take a month to six weeks to arrive. Order from the US and it’ll be here in a week.
Uncle Bob
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:38 PMGizmodo, how can you seriously take local advertisers money and then at the same time tell your readers to shop overseas. The very same people that pay your jobs are being screwed over by yourselves.
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Art Nau
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:06 PMI loled… fair point tho… but if u need giz to state you the obvious you probly dont new to Internet shopping and still buy your sh!t from the local Dick Smith :)
Rhys
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:10 PMUncle Bob,
sorry to point this out but I’d say Gizmodo.com advised them to post this. Gizmodo.com.au is Gizmodo.com without the u in “color” and with local news as well. See http://www.gizmodo.com.au/about/
Nick Broughall
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 8:08 PMNope, we came up with this idea all on our own :)
klaw
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:34 PMHey, it’s being reported in the major newspapers as well – don’t blame Gizmodo for the choice that people are making.
I’d be more interested in buying locally if after-sales support was actually worth anything. In my experience, most retailers redirect their customers to the manufacturer as soon as the money has changed hands.
matt
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:36 PMwhat a joke! its called being unbiased and objective! you know, the same things sites like this usually get bitched at for NOT being!
I don’t know who it is along the chain, but the blatant fact of the matter is that when the price gets to us, the consumer, it is a F***ING RIP OFF! if its retailers getting screwed by the distributors well, quit bitching to us, the consumer, the market, and bitch to your DISTRIBUTOR! why the HELL should we be paying twice, sometimes three times the price!!
the ONLY reason things ARE such a rip off is because, in general, Aussies are ‘layed back’ or, to put it another way: to Lazy and/or sheepish to get a good deal! the same reason the telcos and banks are such bastards! and I’m onboard with anything that encourages us to get a good deal.
Apollo
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 7:06 PMBob, i run a local business so certainly id rather people support my store instead of overseas. however ive been a victim of greedy publishers of games, producers of movies and … yes … those people that sell cds. lets face it we’ve been getting ripped off in this country for ages – $40 for a cd when its 20 in the states… 100 for a game when its 49.99 USD. dont blame import fees and taxes – thats a cop out. we’ve been getting screwed now we’re getting some own back. BUY UP FELLAS!
Steve
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 9:07 PMGood job on not actually understanding the most basic concepts in Economics. Push and shove, import and export, marketing. Have these just completely flown over your head?
We’re supposed to buy foreign products and import precisely BECAUSE the Aussie Dollar is so strong. Now you point to me where they produce nice new computers, phones, tech etc from our shores and I’d happily buy them.
JC Penney
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 2:42 PMFlesh Light, what else…
…oh the Avatar themed Flesh Light.
Hafees Saleem
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:09 PMI would like to suggest http://www.myus.com to get a physical address in US for all those sites that do not ship to Australia. Good value for money.
Ron Holmes
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:37 PMI’d also like to suggest http://www.comgateway.com – they have a buy for me service which is great for those sites that won’t accept Aussie credit card numbers.
Fred
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:41 PMFolks, this is an article about how to capitalise on the parity of the US dollar to ours. Spending our money overseas is exactly the point of this article so don’t whinge about ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ and the like. We’ve all bought items with a different currency to save money (look at Zavvi and PlayAsia).
The goal of this article (I imagine) is to help rather than undermine the efforts of local suppliers. Calm down and go buy that gadget you’ve had your eye on from America for 1/3 the price.
Richard
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:53 PMLevis.com — $45/pair of Levis.
Nokia N8 — $545 US vs $845AU.
Michael
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:07 PMOne word – games.
You can buy Halo Reach for about half price, new, in the US.
I think that’s the definition of bullshit, really.
Pranoy Ghosh
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:08 PMhttp://www.deepdiscount.com – for books and comics (really cheap shipping)
http://www.priceusa.com.au/ – ships stuff to US address and then onwards to you
books
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 9:51 AMbookdepository.co.uk
not a US based, but has free worldwide shipping and books are heaps cheaper
lostincanberra
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 11:32 AMI’d go further. Regardless of whether the Pacific Peso is up, down, in, or out – I use http://www.booko.com.au as my first port of call.
Bookdepository comes out best 9 out of ten times – but, oddly, the prices vary between the UK (www.bookdepository.co.uk) and US (www.bookdepository.com) online presence. Both do their effective charging in $A – so there are no warped credit card fees or PayPal ‘interesting’ exchange rates to factor in. What the site purports to charge, IS the charge.
Works for me!
Dean Mandareen
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:10 PMMight get a Kindle. Only $139 plus $15 shipping.
Oh and thanks for the tip Hafees :)
Stefan
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:34 PMAnyone know any electronics shops in the US which ship to Australia?
Ken Oath
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:46 PMshipito.com is your friend.
Dean Woodyatt
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 5:05 PMGuys, be very careful with a few banks here
ANZ in particular charge 3% of the total for ANY AUD transactions that happen off the mainland
i.e. PAYPAL….
if you use ANZ and PAYPAL, bump up those prices by 3%
James Thomas
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 5:07 PMFor those complaining that local companies are losing business. It’s a tough call that they’re innocent in this. While I would love to buy from my local camera shop, the guys there are really helpful and its great for small things, the price difference o/s is too great for me to buy stuff there ($1800 vs $1300 for a lens)
Will
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 5:14 PMUncle Bob, I just bought a wakeboard for 160 bucks. The cheapest I can get it here is $700 on special. I void the warranty because I hit kickers with it, so warranty means nothing. Why would I pay $540 more for something I’m not even going to get a warranty on? PS I used myUS.