albert online

One thing that still rankles me about living in Australia is just how insanely marked-up prices are. This always happens whenever I walk into a bookstore, shop for electronic goods, or clothes. The only redeeming pricing is food.

Books: unless I want to wait for a British/Australian print, most of the time I’d have to settle by picking-up the imported American print. Earlier in April I wanted to pick-up a copy of Suzuki Koji’s third book in the Ring trilogy, Loop. The MSRP for the book is USD 24.95. At Amazon I picked it up for USD 15.72. According to Yahoo’s currency history chart, at the time USD 1.00 was buying about AUD 1.40, which gives us a price of about AUD 22.01.

Kinokuniya in Sydney is still selling this book at AUD 37.82 today, which translates to USD 29.01. That’s USD 5 more expensive than the USD MSRP!

Let’s move on to electronics, which is what sparked this entry today. I “discovered” last night that my motherboard has an on-board RAID controller, and since hard drive prices in the US were so ridiculously low I’m thinking of buying 2x250GB or 2x320GB drives and setting it up as a RAID0 drive with my current drive as backup.

Hitachi 250GB

At Newegg.com: USD 74.99 = AUD 97.76
At Techbuy.com.au: AUD 150.55 = USD 115.48

Seagate 320GB

At Newegg.com: USD 94.99 = AUD 123.84
At Techbuy.com.au: AUD 177.10 = USD 135.85

Look at the mark-ups I have to deal with. In each case I’m looking at an additional AUD 100 if I were to buy it locally! I certainly hope the IT sector isn’t a priority in Australia because with these prices, they’re not going to sell to the Average Bruce.

I remember when one of my younger brothers was in junior high school he saved-up his money from his paper route and then built his own system after comparing prices online and doing his research. I get the feeling it’s a tad harder to do that here than over in the US.

Clothes. Okay, so my taste does lean a bit toward the higher-end but what was expensive in the US is even more ridiculously expensive here. I’ll spare you the price comparison of your typical Italian fashion-houses. Instead, I’ll go back to electronics for a bit.

Tumi sells a really nice plug converter. It is a compact unit that takes all four types (AU, US, UK, EU) plugs, which is standard, but then it also has outputs for all four as well! The one I’ve had for the longest time was made by Brookstone and was compact, took all four inputs, but only had 3 outputs, with the UK one using the EU prongs and a little plastic bit that you stick into the ground when needed.

My friend who showed this to me wanted to buy one while he was in Sydney so off we went to the Tumi store.

Him: So, how much is this?
Saleslady: It is …. One hundred twenty-five.
Him: Oh.
Me (thinking): ZOMGWTFHOLYSHIT! Heh, welcome to my world.
Him: Hmm…
Saleslady: It’s a GREAT product. Everyone who has one really raves about it!
Him: Hmm…
Me (thinking): Of course they would. They paid a fucking AUD 125.00 for a fucking plug converter. They better rave about it or they’re going to realize the idiots that they really are.
Him: Whatcha think dude?
Me: Pick it up at the Duty Free in Singapore. This is a bit pricey.

I mean, who the fuck prices these things? AUD 125.00 for a plug converter? The original price in the US is USD 50. AUD 125? That’s USD 92.05! Yes, that’s including 10% GST, but that still gives us an original price of USD 83.68!

(USD 50? That’s more expensive that the last time I saw it. I remember it was around USD 30-40 when we first looked at it.)

In the end, he picked-up an exact look-alike at about SGD 30 (which is AUD 24.88 and USD 19.08) at the Changi Airport Duty-Free. Our guess is that this is the original manufacturer and Tumi simply re-branded it and marked-it up. The design is the exact same and includes the replaceable fuse as well (yes, another reason this plug converter is special), the “convenient case” the only missing component.

Lastly, food, the light at the end of the tunnel. I try my hardest not to eat at the food-courts in the US. But food-halls (as they’re called here) in Sydney are not bad at all. The quality is actually quite high, and, much like needing to know which stall to choose when going to a hawker center in Singapore, food-halls in Sydney often has just one highlight which often will have a long queue while the others will have only three or four customers waiting to be served.

My favorite example is a recent find from a few months ago. At AUD 8.50 I can get a decent and authentic dolsot bibimbap (the hot pot one) at a food-hall! No way in hell you’ll find that in a food-court in the US. So it’s a bit skimpy on the beef, but it’s a food-hall serving for crying out loud!

As I’ve mentioned in the past, restaurants in general are actually not bad at all. But, that being said, food alone does not make-up for the mark-ups elsewhere.

And don’t get me started on air-fares here. -sigh-