Take cellphones for example. This is something people often claim are too expensive here.

Go to a retailler in Asia (I'm thinking the Philippines where I have spent time) and not only are the prices fairly similar for 'good' brands (in other words they are a month's or more salary for a Filipino) they are not the same handset.

At best they will be dual SIM and have sacrified something to achieve this (no free space inside) and at worst they will be a cheaper build unit.

This issue is reportedly even worse in China where government regulations control communications devices.

My Mother has a NZ "Samsung J5" and my wife has an Asian "Samsung J5". Both are vanilla 1st gen J5's - not J5 Prime or newer models. My Mother's is a higher spec'd handset and more suited to NZ. Hers has both LTE and B28 (700Mhz support). My wife's is 3.5G only (commonly called 4G there). They are not the same "Samsung J5".

Ditto for a lot of other electronic items.

Filipinos working in New Zealand (and other countries) send massive quantities of stuff back to the Philippines. It's not there isn't heaps of stuff available there - they actually have a far bigger retail sector even accounting for population than we do - but it's the stuff is better quality here and in other 1st world western and Asian countries.

Here in New Zealand, our handsets - and I am talking about medium and high priced, not low end ones - are international models - so they have heaps of frequencies and work much everywhere. My Samsung handset and tablet worked fully throughout Asia.

But the reverse is often not the case. In Asia the handsets they sell are domestic market stuff. Same for other electronics - they sell what works there.