Bushwalk Australia

Hey There Everyone,

So we are planningon the walking the Overland track next winter and have been upgrading a few things and have purchased overseas. Iknow they brought in the Harvey Norman rule and made retailers enforce the payment of GST.

Since we have been upgrading we have bought from some large retailer sin the US and have not had many issues in getting the goods on our doorstep. Feathered friends is an example, they ship direct to Austra;lia no questions asked.

Is everyone else finding the same where you are not having any issues ?

Dave

I haven’t had the Gerry Harvey tax applied to any of my OS purchases. I get quite a lot of them as well.

Buy via eBay and that company adds the GST
A lot of businesses overseas simply refuse to collect an Australian tax and just ship. Some businesses have simply decided that Australia sales are not worth the trouble and just refuse to sell to us.
FF is a good example of a business that won't collect the tax

I've not had issues with purchasing from overseas shops on the internet. I've never never paid GST either.

But international shipping is messed up at the moment due to COVID-19, and so things are taking a LOT longer to get here. Perhaps an extra 2- or 3-week delay.

LOL, tell me about the delays, I bought a new titanium wallet from Vargo and it left New York on the 5th of August and I am still waiting for it. It has been sitting in Australia in multiple hubs since then. Landed in Perth, went missing for weeks, appreared in Sydney Yesterday lol.

I have had no issues, the only thing I have had trouble with is buying direct from Outdoor research.

My understanding is they only have to charge GST if they sell more than $75,000 worth into Australia each year. That's why bigger companies either charge the GST on international purchases, or don't sell direct to Australia. For most little cottage businesses, they won't get close to that figure, so it's not an issue.

The other thing to keep in mind is that $1000 is the magic figure at which point customs get interested in your package and may hold it up. If you're ordering stuff worth more than that, it may be worth getting it split into two smaller packages.

Recent topic I wrote USA 3-4 weeks, UK about 3. One UK item was 6 weeks so must have been low priority. One from Germany
was 4 weeks but I had to redirect from a saved old address. Within Australia a bit longer but either side of one week. All in virus times.

Haven't noticed any gst added, many websites show a price in AUD.

I got stuff shipped from outdoorline.sk in Slovakia, ordered Sunday came Friday. No extra fees. I've noticed gossamer gear doubled their delivery fee

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Surely our Aussie suppliers should be getting all our business at this time.

oldpiscator wrote:Surely our Aussie suppliers should be getting all our business at this time.

Sure, if those suppliers sell what you want and at a reasonable price...

When those suppliers decide to sell things at a ridiculous mark up because your average Australian consumer is clueless, then I start to question whether I should support straight up greed.

To be fair, the main issue is the distributors. Most outdoor brands have an exclusive distributor. They not only jack up the price, they force retailers to sell at a particular price. If they don't, they can't access the product any more.

FatCanyoner wrote:To be fair, the main issue is the distributors. Most outdoor brands have an exclusive distributor. They not only jack up the price, they force retailers to sell at a particular price. If they don't, they can't access the product any more.

Absolutely. I guess I was thinking more about companies who sell their own branded kit.

Yeah alot of stuff is not available here and if there is a distributor they dont usually stock the whole range.

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