Bushwalk Australia

Of note to anyone trying to buy Hilleberg from Campsaver (or other retailers), copied from topic: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=10118 (i'll see if any other posts from that topic are relevant to getting this message across.. at some stage)


Postby Miyata610 » Tue 30 Apr, 2013 6:32 pm

From Petra Hilleberg today.....


Dear Philip

Thank you for your email.
I am sorry that you experienced some problems trying to buy the tent.
We do have a few countries in Asia where we have distributors and
since they are working hard to promote the brand there we have asked
our retailers here to not ship to those countries.

However, you are correct in that we do not have any representation in
Australia and that we can ship to you there from here. Campsaver were
being extra careful and had misunderstood our policy on Australia and New
Zealand.
I have talked to them and they will update their policy.

I have forwarded your email to their management so that they can take
care of it.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Petra Hilleberg

That's good.
Moontrail have no problems sending Hilleberg directly to Australia

Onestepmore wrote:Moontrail have no problems sending Hilleberg directly to Australia

Yes indeed, I got my Soulo and Nallo 2 from them.

And I even got my Akto from Hilleberg direct.

Likewise I had no problems getting my Soulo from Moontrail delivered to country Vic.

They only Australian Hilleberg connection I have come across is in the following link http://mountainadventurecentre.com.au/s ... 69bf9762c1

Just got a reply fro Hilleberg:

Hello,
It might be the discount that is a problem. They can not sell our tents at a
discount anywhere, so that might be why you can't get it. I have talked to
them again and they can ship to Australia.
You can always order it directly on our web-site as well if you want to get
it right away.
http://www.hilleberg.com/home/usa.php

Let me know if you have more questions.

Thank you.
Best,
Petra

sthughes wrote:Just got a reply fro Hilleberg:

Hello,
It might be the discount that is a problem. They can not sell our tents at a
discount anywhere, so that might be why you can't get it. I have talked to
them again and they can ship to Australia.
You can always order it directly on our web-site as well if you want to get
it right away.
http://www.hilleberg.com/home/usa.php

Let me know if you have more questions.

Thank you.
Best,
Petra

The plot thickens as the story unfolds.

So I just tried Moosejaw.

I couldn't complete check out so got onto their online chat. That guy also said Hilleberg won't let them ship internationally! I asked why, he said due to Hilleberg's "vendor agreements". I asked about that only applying to Japan, Europe etc. and he just said no it is anywhere. Then the connection dropped out (or he ended it?). Oh well, it's been interesting!

I to received a reply from Petra Hilleberg and it said the same thing. The inability to discount was not mentioned in the earlier correspondence either as the real reason why the tents could not be supplied. Though we live in an international world laws differ as what has been described would likely be considered retail price fixing by our Australian consumer watchdog with company and personal fines of millions and hundreds of thousands issued. So much for the much vaulted American Free Market, instead it turns out to be a tightly knit set of agreements to eliminate true competition. As Randy Newman sings "It is money that matters in the USA".

O'well at least we are not forced to buy particular products and still have other options, with as mention elsewhere Europe for many restricted products is a better choice, as that is where my Thermarest mat came from. As for Campsaver, well they have made a complete hash of this matter but by the looks of it they are not alone. Makes me thinks that mix messages are coming from somewhere deep in the USA supplier matrix. Maybe I might fall for the charms of a Terra Nova or One Planet tent after all, nah stuff it I have enough tents at the moment.

Regards

"Nah, stuff it" was pretty much what I said last night too! Tried to take advantage of the "loyalty 20" offer and purchase an Allak. Could only select green as the fly colour, wanted red. No footprint available for that model either. Got six tents as it is so Hilleberg miss out on this occasion, admit I have a tent fetish. As it appears from reading this thread, I wouldn't have got it by virtue of the suggested "agreements" anyway. Sad.

I ordered a hilleberg Akto last night using the Loyalty20 code.....
I received an email that said:

Credit Card Type: Visa
Credit Card Number: xxxx-....
Processed Amount: $372.00

And another email this morning that said:

Ordered: 1 Shipped: 1 hil0009-Red Akto 1 Tent-Red $465.00

no money taken from my account yet.... but it appears to have been sent, if I can believe campsaver

Good price!

A green allak on BPL if you are so inclinced, for $530 + shipping

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=76424

This topic was split cause I thought it was important for anyone else having trouble purchasing hilleberg to have a response direct from the horses mouth... simple..? Maybe not haha.. A couple of people have expressed their disagreement with the former topic now not having any focus. Particularly, it seems, by those who want a sounding board to focus on any particular brand. Perhaps I can rearrange it to keep everyone happy.. at some stage... It's just gear guys, c'mon...

- - - - - - -

Anyhow.. some input on shipping issues. How I see it, being able to control distribution should be the privilege of any given brand. 'Price fixing' is a very real concern but I don't think the spirit of free trade agreements was to force communist style dictates on a free market. Terms are easily swapped and confused.

I sometimes buy gear direct from manufacturers (as a distributor) or distributors themselves. More often, in trade agreements with the same retailers as any individual. Deals on buying things by the 10's, still small fry but with some negotiating room.

The first thing that comes to mind is that, in lots, I can usually get 20/30% in discount before shipping (I don't know, is this fair..?) Anyhow, now several years ago, we decided on a product from a retail outlet which had this policy of not shipping direct to AU. I'd seen this on another site but never passed a thought as we didn't need anything with this restriction. I made some inquires and got a similar response. The first was that 'we don't like it much either but what can we do'. A bit of a cop out it seems.

The manager of one popular store took the time to explain the situation in more detail. The bottom line, according to him it was obvious. Manufacturers (moreso as a function of size and popularity) have the right to sell (or not) to whomever they choose . They would All do it given the chance. I guess this is democracy? Within US domestic law, choice of retailer isn't 'illegal'. Iv'e seen moral obligation attached to this in (what seems) a misconception that it's somehow points to an admirable moral conscience to avoid these manufacturers. Of course we don't, do we.. we use drop shippers (in fact paying more for a product into almost any other country could be seen as doing your bit as it filters down to the poorer workers in their social grid ). You'd think that the manufacturers could simply provide retailers with a list of drop shipping companies.. What does it suggest that they haven't been successful in stopping this avenue?? Yep, enter the free trade agreement..

It was always going to be unbalanced, let's not kid ourselves, we (AU) were lucky to be given Any free trade rights in a political trade off with the US. You can't blame manufactures for trying to protect their brand and price in any way legally possible (seems the logic to me). That's business.. the practice is known as 'market skimming' (not price fixing). It happens in all forms of business but I can't see how one can blame manufacturers. Increasingly, they have a short life span to skim profits before someone just copies their design (perhaps on the rise in a world of decreasing loyalty and ethics tailored to the situation in hand)

Of course retail customers are going to get their knickers in a knot, possibly try to twist the logic and turn it back on any descent (even ignore the fact that they Do have these products in their pack already). It doesn't bother me if people find some reason to not agree but it does get tedious when the logic skips the facts. All this with ignoring local standards and a cost for stocking and acting as a local (AU) agent.. Australian standards, set wages, supporting warranties and so on..

I don't want to split the thread up too much but I faced a similar problem with another retailer. I was able to get the 15% off coupon through Moosejaw applied to the cart (coupon: JIBSTYLE) and ordered an Allak + footprint which made it down from $919 to $781.15 ex. shipping.

After putting through the order with an address to to shipito.com, it got cancelled as Hilleberg don't allow shipments to mail forwarders. Fair enough, so I contacted them and they said that they weren't able to ship it there, nor Australia as recently Hilleberg had told them that Australia was now a shipping restriction.

I emailed Hilleberg to enquire about it, and they replied:

Thank you for your email regarding your effort to buy an Allak and footprint
with Moosejaw.

We do have a few countries in Asia where we have distributors and since they
are working hard to promote the brand there we have asked our retailers here
to not ship to those countries.

It sounds like Moosejaw is being extra careful and has misunderstood our
policy on shipping to Australia.
We were able to reach them and they will update their policy.

We have spoken to their management and they will contact you to make sure
you are taken care of.

Please let us know if you have any other questions or need any other help.

Sincerely,

Shannon



Hilleberg the Tentmaker
14790 NE95th Street
Redmond, WA 98052
Ph: 1-425-883-0101
Fax: 1-425-869-6632
http://www.hilleberg.com

Moosejaw got back to me and processed the sale. Shipping ended up to be $79.95 with FedEX (not as bad as I thought it would be) and also, I earnt about 7812 points on Moosejaw which equates to the worth of up to $78.12 on a future sale that I will use once it's shipped. There is also a 5% redemption via fatwallet.com which I'm not sure will be processed now because the sale was done manually, but we'll have to see.

After searching high and low for a cheaper price on a Hilleberg I think I'm fairly satisfied. Here's my breakdown:

Hilleberg Allak $835
Coupon -$125.25
Footprint $84
Coupon -$12.60
---
Total $781.15
+ Shipping $79.95
---
$861.12
-$78.12 in points
-$39 5% cashback fatwallet.com (maybe)

$744-$783 US

Hope this helps anyone else out there looking for a deal. The guys at moosejaw are very helpful and witty, can't say anything bad about their processes as they had just been misinformed like it sounds like the rest of the retailers have been

Interesting.. some of them are cowboys, it hints that some will take it on themselves to interpret the law. I might draft an email to some of the major retailers asking them to state their policy.

Just as another alternative (last resort), members might want to try posting on BPL that they need something.. some established members there are very helpful.. ; ) Iv'e had some help with this (mainly to get around some of their members not wanting to post O/S)

yeah but whats going on behind the scenes? some of the manufacturers are probably threatening the online shops with pulling their gear from them if they dont pay close attention to where they are shipping to.. so the shops end up going overboard... how many americans can tell the difference between asia and australia? and think australia is part of asia... a lot of americans think nz is just offshore from australia...
so to avoid potentially upsetting the manufacturers they err on teh side of caution and ban shipping to any country they think is near to asia.. i mean bsides thers only a handfull of people living down under anyway...... next time you email these online shops send them a link to a map of asia and point out the scale.... and tell them you really like shopping at their online shop in south america!!

wayno wrote:yeah but whats going on behind the scenes?

the trouble is many people are "thinking too much", conspiracy theories abound.

removed

roysta wrote:

wayno wrote:yeah but whats going on behind the scenes?

the trouble is many people are "thinking too much", conspiracy theories abound.

this is not consipracy theory at all. its how the gear vendors work.
the online shops have little to gain from restricting who they sell to, and as is pointed out here they are loosing business because of export restrictions, they have no interest in protecting the liveihood of distributors in other countries, they are actually in competition with them.
so its pretty much down to pressure from the companies making the gear that are ensuring the export bans are enforced, so something is definitely going on behind the scenes. one day you can buy gear online overseas and then all of a sudden you find you can't.
the online stores who want to sell reputable brands are pretty much stuck with the policies of the companies of the gear they are selling...
if they all said stop selling down under which is a small part of their market then they would to ensure they can keep selling those brands to the bulk of their market...

I don't even worry about whether I can get it shipped direct or not.
Many of the websites spell out the brands they can't ship here, like BD, MontBell and Cascade Designs.
I have bought BD stuff via Bivouac in NZ or I just get it shipped to a forwarder in the US.
Takes a little longer but no sweat.
The percentage of gear I would buy locally is probably 5%.

its inconsistent, i've had no probs getting some brands shipped from the states even when that brand has a local distributor here. all comes down to what the manufacturers tell the online stores.
black diamond don't want their gear shipped down under from the states but i had no probs getting sunnysports to ship an item to me .

Correct, it's hit and miss.

Ive no problem people hunting deals.
But why do people carry on like they are entitled to something from a manufacturer or their reseller.

the only real winners in excluding exporting direct to the customer are the distributors , who make all the extra markup and get a monopoly on selling in a region.... you're at the mercy of wht the distributors will charge and will stock. in some cases the markups are massive compared to what you can buy online overseas , theres no way that markup is justified despite their marketing overheads, it just looks like price scalping via a monopoly.

Just received delivery of my Allak trent from Campsaver with 20% discount. I shipped to a US address using a company call borderlnx in the US who use DHL.

Total landed cost for the tent was $730 - instead of $899 if purchased locally.(including insurance for loss etc.)

From order to delivery via Borderlnx took 11 days so not bad.

Rob A wrote:Ive no problem people hunting deals.
But why do people carry on like they are entitled to something from a manufacturer or their reseller.

The big companies (Cascade Designs etc) are threatening to refuse supply to retailers if they ship to Australia. In Australia that would be illegal. As would be Hilleberg's policy of enforcing minimum sale prices.

sthughes wrote:As would be Hilleberg's policy of enforcing minimum sale prices.

Why would this be illegal? Are they not simply protecting their own direct sales model?

how can the aus govt have any control over what and overseas company do? individuals can bring into the country what they like as long as its not contraband and the govt can't do anything if those companies don't want to ship to retailers..

Strider wrote:

sthughes wrote:As would be Hilleberg's policy of enforcing minimum sale prices.

Why would this be illegal? Are they not simply protecting their own direct sales model?

Could it be restrictive trade practices, as described in the well respected law journal Wikipedia? .....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitio ... r_Act_2010

See Resale Price Maintenance.