Why is Home Theatre gear so expensive in NZ? (Vs. USA)

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Why is Home Theatre gear so expensive in NZ? (Vs. USA)

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376 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1802107 16-Jun-2017 13:10

Senecio:

If you're keen to proceed with this then bring one in from the UK. Correct voltage, only need to change the plug and comparable prices to the US (sometimes better!).

https://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/yamaha/rxv681/yama-rxv681-blk

That UK price is not bad at all!

KiwiTim

376 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1802111 16-Jun-2017 13:25

allio:

AV receivers have probably the worst NZ markup of any electronic gear I've come across. I suspect their size and bulkiness, plus the voltage issues you mention, are chiefly responsible. That's both in legitimate added expenses for NZ retailers, who have to import the things in the first place, but also in artificially reduced competition (it's even more expensive for an individual consumer to privately import one than it is for a retailer). That means sellers of RAM, CPUs and SSDs in NZ have had to try to match the "Amazon price" or quickly go out of business, while sellers of AV gear have been relatively insulated from this effect.

I looked at importing a receiver from the UK but found after shipping and GST, the cost was creeping close enough to the cost of an NZ unit that it wasn't worth giving up a local warranty.

That's right, the bulk/weight means this kind of gear is more expensive to ship from overseas. YouShop price for this device was $100, which is not too much of a barrier though. If some store like Harvey Norman is importing a container full, or a smaller store 2 or 3 pallet loads, the unit shipping cost comes right down. I looked into this myself once, surface shipping a pallet of electronic goods from US to NZ isn't as expensive as one might think. It's the barrier of voltage and warranty that put most folks off. But I think I'll go the UK way and perhaps wait for Boxing Day.

As you say the AV sellers in NZ have been protected from being competitive with US/UK by the barriers you mention, and if the barriers of different voltage and warranty cover were not there, then NZ sellers would be driven to be more competitive on pricing and I bet they would still sell stock and keep their heads above water.

Satch

1985 posts

Uber Geek

#1802126 16-Jun-2017 13:52

KiwiTim: ...If some store like Harvey Norman is importing a container full, or a smaller store 2 or 3 pallet loads, the unit shipping cost comes right down. I looked into this myself once, surface shipping a pallet of electronic goods from US to NZ isn't as expensive as one might think...

I think you'll find that it is the NZ distributor importing a container full, adding their markup, and selling it to an NZ retailer who also adds their markup.

vulcannz

436 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1802132 16-Jun-2017 13:58

old3eyes:

Will be interesting to see what Amazon AUs pricing will be on this sort of stuff..

tbh Amazon pricing is pretty meh once you account for freight, GST and any potential duties. <$400 are really sneaking through as better prices based on no-GST.

Where shopping online kicks in is for rare, 2nd hand or unavailable items. For example I recently got some Thrustmaster rudder pedals, us$80 at Frys, > nzd$200 locally. I brought them on a trip to the USA, if I had got them freighted the price gap would have closed to be within the GST margin. Some stuff like rifle scopes, magazines etc there a big differences. Other stuff like PC components can be about equal once shipping/GST is accounted for. But you do lose out on the CGA coverage (I recently had a high end joystick replaced out of warranty using the CGA - if I purchased ex-USA I would have had no show). Amazon is great for stuff you cannot get locally like Rokus.

The hard cold fact of the matter is we live on a couple of lowly populated islands on the arse end of the world.

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

Uber Geek

#1802144 16-Jun-2017 14:33

To put a little perspective into this...

The RXV681 is now discontinued so you'll see it being dumped around NZ and indeed the rest of the world.

The retailers / countries with too much stock will be dumping as quickly as possible, which means cheap buying for consumers. Those retailers in NZ who haven't done anything other than list the RRP on their website will look like they're gouging - when in reality they just aren't running their stores website outside of "retail reality".

As an aside, I've seen this priced in-store at $1050'ish during the big Harvey's sales. They don't partake in Pricespy so the price history isn't reflecting my observation.

Some websites will export directly to our part of the world, others won't - forcing you to use an on-shipper. This adds money and typically time... it is what it is. If you can wait, cool. But once

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1802176 16-Jun-2017 15:39

Dunnersfella:
To put a little perspective into this...

The RXV681 is now discontinued so you'll see it being dumped around NZ and indeed the rest of the world.

The retailers / countries with too much stock will be dumping as quickly as possible, which means cheap buying for consumers. Those retailers in NZ who haven't done anything other than list the RRP on their website will look like they're gouging - when in reality they just aren't running their stores website outside of "retail reality".

As an aside, I've seen this priced in-store at $1050'ish during the big Harvey's sales. They don't partake in Pricespy so the price history isn't reflecting my observation.

Some websites will export directly to our part of the world, others won't - forcing you to use an on-shipper. This adds money and typically time... it is what it is. If you can wait, cool. But once

I was talking about Amazon Australia not US as I would think if they are aiming at the NZ market as well GST and freight would be included.

Regards,

Old3eyes

tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#1802213 16-Jun-2017 16:08

Senecio:

If you're keen to proceed with this then bring one in from the UK. Correct voltage, only need to change the plug and comparable prices to the US (sometimes better!).

https://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/yamaha/rxv681/yama-rxv681-blk

Yeah, much safer/easier to buy where the voltage and FM bands are compatible with NZ.

I bought a Denon amp in Singapore a few years back - all I had to do was change the 3 pin plug :-)

North America on the other hand - be very wary. Not only potential issues with voltage but also FM - their FM stations transmit only on odd decimal points, (90.1, 90.3, 90.5 etc) so many of their receivers skip the even numbers to accelerate the seek function. I have been bitten by car stereo's bought back from the USA - correct frequency range, but skips over and won't receive most of the Auckland stations (90.2, 91.0, 96.6 etc).

With regard to world-voltage/multi-voltage: appliances that doesn't use a lot of power and are portable tend to have world voltage switch mode supplies (Blue ray, phones, computers etc) however home theatre uses 100's of watts and tent to have single voltage transformers. As pointed out above, some amps do have dual voltage transforms with a manual voltage switch, but don't assume - do your research first.

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tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#1802215 16-Jun-2017 16:09

Incidentally, yes the Denon amp was NZ$1400 here and NZ$450 in Singapore - couldn't walk away from that deal.

shk292

2853 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1802240 16-Jun-2017 16:26

Out of interest, I looked at this item on Amazon UK, who will deliver it to NZ for 517UKP all-up price inc shipping and estimated import taxes - that's $915 at today's exchange rate, and you have the advantage of correct voltage and radio frequencies.

That's probably the easy option

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

Uber Geek

#1802316 16-Jun-2017 17:53

shk292:

Out of interest, I looked at this item on Amazon UK, who will deliver it to NZ for 517UKP all-up price inc shipping and estimated import taxes - that's $915 at today's exchange rate, and you have the advantage of correct voltage and radio frequencies.

That's probably the easy option

And it would be $140 cheaper than the NZ sale price... but without CGA protection / local retailers to fall back on.

It's rolling the dice, but $140 is $140... to some people that's cool.

KiwiTim

376 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1802484 17-Jun-2017 08:19

shk292:

Out of interest, I looked at this item on Amazon UK, who will deliver it to NZ for 517UKP all-up price inc shipping and estimated import taxes - that's $915 at today's exchange rate, and you have the advantage of correct voltage and radio frequencies.

That's probably the easy option

Indeed, probably the best option!

vulcannz

436 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1802968 18-Jun-2017 14:01

Dunnersfella:

To put a little perspective into this...

The RXV681 is now discontinued so you'll see it being dumped around NZ and indeed the rest of the world.

The retailers / countries with too much stock will be dumping as quickly as possible, which means cheap buying for consumers. Those retailers in NZ who haven't done anything other than list the RRP on their website will look like they're gouging - when in reality they just aren't running their stores website outside of "retail reality".

As an aside, I've seen this priced in-store at $1050'ish during the big Harvey's sales. They don't partake in Pricespy so the price history isn't reflecting my observation.

Some websites will export directly to our part of the world, others won't - forcing you to use an on-shipper. This adds money and typically time... it is what it is. If you can wait, cool. But once

US retailers probably have to clear hundreds of units, whereas Kiwi retailers will have a couple lying around - and even though a product is discontinued offshore it take a long time for the replacement to hit NZ.

I have seen harveys stuff on pricespy, it's how I found the Sony soundbar (CT-790) I wanted. Checked on pricespy, harveys had it for $498 (I see its back to $640 now), went into Harveys - they didn't even know what it was or that they had it in stock :)

prasnz

21 posts

Geek

#1803119 18-Jun-2017 21:18

I agree that questions do need to be asked by either the consumers of their local retailers/importers/wholesalers or the retailers of their importers/wholesalers. As Kiwi's we are generally not too good at asking the hard questions and simply accepting/trusting of answers at face value without digging a little deeper.

Often you will find, a product is simply priced at whatever the market will bear rather than looking at an internationally competitive pricing model. A great recent example of this is when some large tech corporations were being grilled by Australian politicians - there was a straight out admission that they priced their products higher in Australia simply because they could...

Having said that, some brands are generally better at international pricing than others e.g. Apple.

And yes, I can appreciate that there are fluctuations in FX etc. which means pricing can't always be right on point and there is a need for consistency/certainty for consumers etc.

But, if on a regular basis, consumers at an individual level can pay retail price at an overseas vendor including local sales taxes, often at not entirely favourable exchange rates, pay for shipping costs, pay NZ GST, pay NZ import duty and still come out on top (20%+ savings) then something is very wrong with the pricing model...

For reference, this appears to be the local RRPs on Yamaha's 2016 Avantage Receivers for Australia and New Zealand.

RX-A660 A$1,249.00 | NZ$1,199.00

RX-A760 A$1,500.00 | NZ$1,599.00

RX-A860 A$1,800.00 | NZ$1,999.00

RX-A1060 A$2,099.00 | NZ$2,499.00

RX-A2060 A$2,499.00 | NZ$3,699.00

RX-A3060 A$2,999.00 | NZ$4,699.00

We are pretty good lower down the range (well done NZ retailers) but for some reason, the pricing on the middle and top of the range receivers becomes more distorted. Not sure if this is due to losing economies of scale with the number of units being brought into the country, or simply because they can due to the demographics for the high-end models.

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

Uber Geek

#1803166 19-Jun-2017 07:38

If you want a laugh - compare the Denon and Marantz prices in NZ and Australia...

sbiddle

30853 posts

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Biddle Corp

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#1803171 19-Jun-2017 07:56

Just look at the price difference of the new 2017 LG OLED's in NZ vs AU.

You could fly to Aussie, stay for a weekend night, go out on the town and have a very good night, but a 55" C7, pay for luggage, pay for GST in NZ and still save yourself around $1500 on buying one in NZ.

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