ACCC investigates aggreements to not ship to Aus

[Nuts]

How much to pay? That is the question. Marketing gurus would suggest that so long as you are happy with your purchase then the sale has been a success and the price is 'right'.

I also buy gear online, the quality gear is at a similar price to what we all paid locally 15-20yrs ago. Meh, everyone I knew had a pack and tent of sorts. Now we 'all' have 2 or 3, a model for each season even. Hear of something lighter, a nicer colour. Meanwhile though, we are actually buying Less materials for our $, some of the ultra light gear looks ironically basic..

Anyhow..I'm sure theres some sort of biblical reference to avarice to suit? Most of the evolution iv'e seen in gear isn't a Huge' improvement despite the blurb. If it was just weight, we could have cut something off (of course there goes the resale value ) or left it behind, but now don't need to think twice about just buying another. Surely all the waste can't be good, I imagine those least concerned in loosing local retail to have a community funded job, guess Carbon Tax should cover the increasing excess .. lol.. Theres a good future for the kids in mining but I get the feeling we'll all need our turn at austerity.

The web has made life So much easier. Simpler, no. Better? who really knows? I read somewhere, someone scoffing about the net- let them do so many things. 'All the things I never Really needed..'

(which part?)

[corvus]

quote(Anyhow..I'm sure theres some sort of biblical reference to avarice to suit? Surely all the waste can't be good, I imagine those least concerned in loosing local retail to have a community funded job, guess Carbon Tax should cover the increasing excess .. lol.. Theres a good future for the kids in mining but I get the feeling we'll all need our turn at austerity.)quote
Nuts,
Condensed what you said but trying to get get my head around "avarice ,local retail,community funded jobs, mining, austerity and Carbon Tax
That is a broad brush
corvus

[Nuts]

Ha, right! well.. over a few schnapps maybe but i'll save the forum a further rant.

[wayno]

it's worth the risk of buying online, it's a lot cheaper, and at least you can get your hands on it if your local shop won't get it in, and you can send it back,,,, i havent had to send anything back that i've bought online yet, i've saved so much money buying online so far i'm still way up on savings if i have to ship the odd item back to the states.....

[slparker]

Corvus:
Wayne said it all. I can get an osprey pack online and return it if It doesn't suit. Either way if I don't live close to Melbourne I can't get the locally manufactured product. If retailers want my business they can develop relationships with the distributor/manufacturer and goddamn get a product in for me to try before I spend 200 bucks on it. Otherwise I'm forced to take a gamble over a 200 dollar pack sight unseen or a us$ 70 pack sight unseen...not difficult to work out is it.

[wayno]

I wouldnt bother with a shop that won't get gear in that i want. thats not good service at all.
problem is there are more tyre kickers than ever in ships now which may affect a shop owners actions in being reluctant to get stock in that may not be a good seller... but it's harder to keep custom when you dont stock what customers want... and go the extra mile for them

[jacko1956]

None of the above has even touched on the fact that staff at the major retailers (everywhere not just outdoor) have no idea about good service. You will find some that break the mould but we have all had experiences at counters where the staff continue their own conversation while taking your money etc. If you aren't treated special then you have nothing to lose shopping online.
I noticed this week that major store with the Himalayan name has "a further 20% off" of the "up to 60% off" already advertised. What is the markup that makes that possible??
I agree that retail does not have a good future - the bookshop chains are showing that with Amazon and the Book Depository effectively killing them off.
Music stores are largely only surviving because Andre Rieu sells to a demographic that don't shop online yet.
But nearly all products source from the same places (China and Vietnam in the case of outdoor gear), so unless they work on low markups (very difficult for the small OZ market) retailers can't compete with online and will inevitably go. It's sad for some individuals involved but one door closes etc...
Personally I find I don't shop for mass produced much anymore. Henry Shires and ULA are 2 examples of small USA based manufacturers serving the niche market of backpacking and I will continue to use them and others like them. One Planet just didn't have a product that suited me but I wish them well along with the few NZ manufacturers still going. But sadly even my Icebreaker tee isn't made in NZ anymore (just NZ wool).

[wayno]

it's been covered many times in other threads on here about the poor service that can be found at the larger outdoor outlets. pay peanuts get monkeys... my brother in law found out when he complained about ill fitting boots he'd bought, the staff couldnt get away from him fast enough....

[Greenie]

Can they be saved?

[climberman]

Are they for real ?

I can buy advice from the internet. I also get a heap of it for free. It's never been much worse than the advice I get from a shop, and often been much better. Try a backpacking light product series review over wandering into a shop to buy something from a 20-something... that said many of the people who worked in gear stores when I was in my first range of purchases are still on the internet, and their age and bitterness has increased in line with my own, so I get along just fine with them !

They will be saved if they offer a combination of inovative product presentation, comparative pricing and ease of access.

[wayno]

i dont need to buy advice on the internet, I can get all the free advice I need right on bushwalk.com and the wealth of experience that congregates here...

[tastrax]

Parks Hat off - I just could not let that advertisement pass...

Parks Hat on

[Greenie]

I didn't think they would get too much sympathy on here. I am glad I posted it now.

[Nuts]

Where are they?

[tastrax]

It was just too good to pass up - I don't think they will win many friends at all with a campaign like that. Each of those companies has an online presence and an opportunity to use that to their advantage - maybe they are still thinking old school advertising.

Think of the difference between that campaign and us having Cam from Macpac on this forum - which do you reckon will pay the greatest dividend?

[tastrax]

Lets see what the reaction is? http://www.facebook.com/wildmagazine

[flatfoot]

Can they be saved?

I found this image ironic. I bought a new pair of scarpas in a store recently. The sales assistant was the most senior person in the store. They did not know anything about mondo sizes. They also didn't seem to understand the differences between us, uk and aus sizes. Admittedly I had been doing a great deal of research online into boot fitting techniques and sizing but it irked me that I knew more about the topic than the sales assistant .

Edit: typo

[McGinnis]

My (small) part in this is not buying from companies that won't ship overseas directly.

Hence having Exped pads, and not a Thermarest in sight.

[wayno]

dont know it will make a difference either way, if you buy online using a mail forwarding company or a friend to shop the goods either way you are bypassing the distributrs who will loose your business and stand to loose their business and that would then remove the ban on shipping abroad to your country....
mountain hardwear pulled out of nz recently prob through lack of sales.... end result you can get them shipped to nz no problem now....
you'll never stop the ban on exporting as long as there are monopoly distributors....

[Wolfix]

Easy to not care about outdoor retail when you're not relying on it to pay for rent and food. I can say for sure that there are still people who need to talk to someone in store to get a real idea of what they should buy. The standard of advice is not an argument against retail storefronts but it is an argument for better training. Also, when you buy online you're buying from an outdoor retailer. I don't think customers need to bear the burden of sustaining industry because of a moral argument but I equally disagree that this is a dichotomy.

[wayno]

doesnt say much for store owners who let unknowledgeable, untrained staff loose, just looks like they only have staff to flog off whatever they can to an unsuspecting punter. i used to work in a computer store when i knew virtually nothing about computers. boss didnt care.... if i could charge up a sale, he was happy..
thers a lot of people around who are just turning up to work because they need the money, no other reason i work with quite a few people like that. they take no interest in learning or improving .... although you get some who have no knowledge to start with but they want to learn and they come along in leaps and bounds...
shop owners can't afford to pay big money so they get relatively unmotivated people working in the shops a lot of the time. wht shops have training?
kathmandu jsut want people who may happen to have positive outlook, students? other than that, you're safer not asking for help.... you probably know more than they do about what you're looking at...

[wildernesswanderer]

And retail has a huge turnover because of this, I have been a photographer for over 15 years and also worked in the retail section of cameras and in service. The place I worked prided itself on having knowledgable people that actually has a passion and love for photography so the consumer would come to the store and get proper knowledge on what they wanted. Pity the management didm;t look after the staff with a huge turnover, eventually they had to start just employing anyone and I must admit I have fun going in and stumping all the new staff that have not a clue about what the difference between a Bayer and Foveon sensors are, or how Fuji have a different sensor pattern and why it produces more natural colours.

As for the ACCC, what a waste of space they are. They won't do anything and even if they could a importer may have a agreement with another country but it's the other country refusing to send the goods. ACCC can't tell them they have to, simple as that

[maddog]

...As for the ACCC, what a waste of space they are. They won't do anything and even if they could a importer may have a agreement with another country but it's the other country refusing to send the goods. ACCC can't tell them they have to, simple as that

There is no reason the ACCC could not, or could not be empowered too, take action against the domestic arms of distribution company though. The ACCC (and similar organisations overseas) have had some success in breaking up other cartels and in the reduction of monopolistic and/or anti-compeditive behaviour, so it is fair to suggest that appropriate regulation of 'free markets' has tended keep them free. Without good regulation we have the precedent of rotten capitalism rather than free markets (e.g. the unscrupulous behaviour of the East India Trading Company, or those natural monopolies (such as rail) that were once controlled by the robber-barons in the US). Not even Adam Smith thought monopoly a good thing, nor did he believe enterprise could be trusted.

Besides the ACCC provides local employment.

Cheers

[wildernesswanderer]

Maybe but the ACCC can not stop, and I'll use Nikon here, the USA branch of Nikon not allowing shops like B&H from shipping Nikon DSLR cameras overseas. If Nikon USA say to B&H that they will lose their dealership if they do then I can't import a camera from them. So if a USA company stop their dealers from shipping overseas the ACCC can't do anything about it. Simple really. Unless something happens in the USA to stop it then we are out of luck

[maddog]

Maybe but the ACCC can not stop, and I'll use Nikon here, the USA branch of Nikon not allowing shops like B&H from shipping Nikon DSLR cameras overseas. If Nikon USA say to B&H that they will lose their dealership if they do then I can't import a camera from them. So if a USA company stop their dealers from shipping overseas the ACCC can't do anything about it.

Agreed, the Australian Government has no jurisdiction in the USA.

But the Australian Government through the ACCC, being sovereign in our nation, could prohibit the import and distribution of goods under agreements that resulted in anti-competitive conduct leading to a local monopoly and unreasonably high prices. I suggest that although the pursuit of such policy would create much bluster, such companies would still like to sell their products in Australia, and the result would be very popular.

Cheers