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Australian Post Office Opens Mail Forwarding Warehouse In the USA
Zanadou writes Australians are well used to paying what's called an "Australian Tax": high(er) prices for international products and services simply because they are are being accessed from an Australian IP address and/or being delivered to an Australian mail address. But Australia Post, Australia's national mail service, might have a solution: last week they opened a new warehouse/delivery depot in Oregon, U.S., allowing Australians to use a U.S.-based delivery address for mail items, which can then forwarded onwards to Australia.
However, this service, called "Shopmate", comes at a cost.
However, this service, called "Shopmate", comes at a cost.
and terminated.
You have to deliver the package to the prison office for inspection before prisoners can receive the delivery.
Now if only we could end the even more idiotic practice of regional price gouging for digital goods/services too.
Does ANYONE think that this would be happening if the gov agencies didn't think they could get something from it ?
It would allow the Australian NSA access without violating those pesky laws they're supposed to follow...
UPS Sucks
After reading the links it's still not clear to me why this is occurring. Is it that sellers charge Australians more just because they can, and if so, are they not able to get away with it elsewhere? Do even huge online retailers like Amazon charge different prices depending on the country the items are going to? I'd have thought the US Federal Trade Commission would be scrutinizing these practices.
Sure Australia Post, a government owned entity, gets money from it when people pay them for the service.
From a snooping perspective it makes no difference. The government can search any package it wants that is being imported into the country.
The cost is about AUD 30 minimum, which is about USD 26 per package. Yes, it may be less than directly shipping individual packages, but it's still gouging.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Colloquially known as a Slashvertisment. If you're generous, assume the incompetence of Dice/editors.
OT: When [proxy] tools can directly circumvent something, it's blatantly broken. Either yield on it or waste endless resources trying to whackamole the workarounds forever.
When proxy tools merely circumvent in a ethical or conceptual sense, you're still writing bullshit laws or rules. If things like a remote camera/viewer or deadmanswitch get around your policy or ruling or copyrightlulz, you had something retarded to begin with.
//However, this service, called "Shopmate", comes at a cost.//
It's made from Australian-Americans.
I'd guess because it's the only US state on the pacific coast with no sales tax.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
It would allow the Australian NSA access without violating those pesky laws they're supposed to follow...
What pesky laws are those? I'm pretty certain that governments already have the rights to inspect any goods that pass over their borders and to know the details of who is transporting them, where they came from and to whom they are going.
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No need, retailers will simply learn the addresses and apply the "Australia Tax" to those shipping addresses so they can keep profiting from it.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
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I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
It's not US retailers, generally, who are overcharging Australians. If the retailers also do business in Australia, they might care. But if you buy something from a company with no presence in Australia who previously wouldn't ship there themselves, then it'll be fine.
You mean like make money (it will be profitable) and aiding their citizens (cheaper goods) and keep money in Australia (better Australian economy) and lowering the cost of trade with Australia (general trade = good arguments here)? Because, yeah, I mean, I do think the government does things for any one of those purposes.
Or do you mean nutter "if it weren't for this, how would customs officials have the right to open packages coming into the country on clearly marked USPS/UPS/FedEx shipments?"
On a personal note, this is great. Overseas shipping is such a complex beast my company was not planning on shipping to Australia (at least until we grew larger). Saying to Australians, "you can purchase our product through a ShipMate account" will help my company with more sales, and Australians who want to buy our product.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
New Zealand has a similar service. It's been running for a couple of years or so.
It is called Youshop https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools...
The USA warehouse opens the parcel and repackages it if they can. This saves volume and for Amazon packages this might be a 50% volume saving. All of the packages are then bundled together and shipped to New Zealand for final distribution.
For the user there may or not be a mail cost saving. You pay for shipping to a US address and then for shipping from there to Australia. The service is extremely useful where the seller won't ship to a foreign address but will ship to a US one.
It's not US retailers, generally, who are overcharging Australians. If the retailers also do business in Australia, they might care. But if you buy something from a company with no presence in Australia who previously wouldn't ship there themselves, then it'll be fine.
This. It's like Canada--the middle-man makes a ridiculous amount of money because there's less competition in middle-men, so products often cost more than in the states. It's not as bad as it was pre-NAFTA, but it's not great either. The cost of a tire was at least 30% higher the last time I checked, although YMMV.
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There, that's better.
Ha ha ha, nice. Somebody actually bothers to impersonate me at the time when my 'karma' is not too shitty to leave normal comments under my account name?
Too funny.
By the way, you idiot, this website IS a government operation, it is owned by the Australian Post Office.
You can't handle the truth.
Nope, I actually was surprised about this a couple times, too. For example, on the German amazon website, there are quite a few sellers which offer cheap 1-2 euro stuff (like e.g. USB adapters, ink cartridges for pens, ...) with free shipping, from china or japan. I needed a USB OTG cable for my android tablet, so I bought one from such a seller. And indeed, one week later, I had a padded envelope with that cable, from china, in my hands. 2 euro item with free shipping from china, the profit on that sale cannot be very high, even if the cable itself cost only a couple cents for the seller.
Australia is like that island in Lost. It's fine as long as you don't venture too far from the beach.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
A box or container of postcards would cost you less (per postcard) than a single postcard. It also costs you the same amount of money to send 1 postcard or 5 within an envelope.
The UPU says that each country retains all money collected for international postage so it doesn't cost the Chinese anything to send stuff from China to anywhere in the world once it is beyond their borders.
The postal system in the US and most European countries is funded by the market instead of by the government. When I grew up in Europe, before the postal system became privatized in 2000, you could send a 50kg package across the world for the (inflation adjusted) equivalent of ~USD 15 (and we thought that was barely affordable). Today, sending the same package costs USD 325. There is very few stuff I receive directly from China and if I do, it's usually less than 2 kg in an envelope, they seem to have paid CNY 3.10 for my last package (USD 0.51).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for the Australian squatters after all.
Hey I am not going to deny any of the past genocide or current treatment now and I am ashamed of that aspect of Oz. On the other hand I still feel pride in where I was borne.
The sad thing is that even given such eulogies we still have people like Andrew Bolt.
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With the Republicans scoring big in the election, the US dollar hit a high (apparently because they're pro business) against the Aussie dollar, which is now the lowest it's been for 4 years after a gradual slide over the last few months.
This would have been fantastic 2 years ago but now we're just facing the original Australia tax - a poor exchange rate. Might still be a few things that you can get a good deal on though.
1.Its expensive (more expensive than existing mail forwarding services)
and 2.If people actually start using it, online retailers will refuse to ship to it (just like many online retailers will refuse to ship to existing mail forwarding services, citing fraud, dodgy credit cards and drop-ship scams)
Right, but one that has a local branch (the local post office) near to you and is unlikely to vanish with overnight (it is the national postal service after all) and isn't based in Russia with a Russian language web site is likely to have a competitive advantage in Australia.
The cost of a tire was at least 30% higher the last time I checked, although YMMV.
Is there really a correlation between the varying retail price of a tire and its mileage?
1. The extra taxes associated are because we have a mandatory 3 year warranty on any electronic goods, and 1 to 2 year mandatory warranty on any other goods and because Any good an Australian buys they have the right to return for a full refund within 60 days at the place of purchases expense
3. If any US business charges Australian tax on us goods they have a legal obligation to give it to the Australian Tax Office or they face tax fraud
4. The goods if over priced are due to the U.S. supplier mainly, import tax is only 10% of item cost...
5. Australians are no more convicts or genosidists then Americans. We may have killed what is expected to be a few million Aboriginals intentionally or not but you enslaved an entire population of African Americans (we never did this) and you crushed a Native American population of nearly 50-100 million! And you still glorify the people who did it, Custer, George Wasington.. And as for convicts, the majority came for petty crime such as stealing food so they could feed there families. So if you proclaim that as convicts we are denigrated by this status you are a sociopath. Who in the right mind wouldn't risk stealing if your entire family was starving.
6. Australians really don't need ecomnomic advice from America. We have a higher GDP, we have basically no dept per capita compared to you and we are ranked second in the world for our economy. We may pay a bit more but we do it for the good of our economy.
7. Australia is ranked by the consensus of studies the most liveable country in the world, with all of its major cities listed in the top 10. We do not have gun massacres on a weekly basis in our schools, in fact the last gun massacre in Australian was more than 20 years ago. We do not have a criminal epidemic, Australia is ranked one of the lowest counties in the world for crime and corruption. But most of all at least we don't parade our self as the global sovereign for peace and justice and then declare 'wars on false pretences'.
The US market is big enough that a lot of US businesses simply don't bother offering to ship anywhere else. The potential of having to deal with foreign customers/regulations is often not worth it, regardless of how simple the procedures are.
In Australia, however, "Country Pricing" has gone "full retard"
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Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
if you dont mind at least $30 being added to the cost, which is the minimum shipping fee from shipmate
It would allow the Australian NSA access without violating those pesky laws they're supposed to follow...
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation or ASIO.
signature is pants
Yes. I bought a set of Michellins and they were good for about 60,000 miles but the cheaper brand only lasted for 40,000.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Woomera wasn't too bad and though we had sand we were a ways from the beach ;-).
mandatory 3 year warranty on any electronic goods
Citation needed. None of the electronics that have failed on me were covered by a mandatory 3 year warranty.
But that's not the same tire, but bought through a middle-man.
Which at least a known cost.
Yeah it's a lot, almost doubling the unit cost. But, if we ship a dozen together...
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I was thinking of emigrating, any suggestions? :)
It's not US retailers, generally, who are overcharging Australians. If the retailers also do business in Australia, they might care. But if you buy something from a company with no presence in Australia who previously wouldn't ship there themselves, then it'll be fine.
This. It's like Canada--the middle-man makes a ridiculous amount of money because there's less competition in middle-men, so products often cost more than in the states. It's not as bad as it was pre-NAFTA, but it's not great either. The cost of a tire was at least 30% higher the last time I checked, although YMMV.
This. Distributors take the absolute piss with pricing. A CD that costs $10-15 in the US costs $25-30 in Australia however to ship the same media from the US to Australia it costs less than $5 to do it on an indivdual basis (I order all of my games from the UK or Hong Kong). Tyres are another one, good Continental tyres (225/45/17) cost $150 a corner from tirerack.com, but if I ordered them in Australia from an Australian distributor it would be over $200 a corner.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
AFAIK, Chinese businesses don't pay a cent for international postage - yay, communism!
Under international treaty, the receiving country delivers said small packages for free to the consumer.
Hamburg to Berlin, well it's sender-pays.
Sure Australia Post, a government owned entity, gets money from it when people pay them for the service.
From a snooping perspective it makes no difference. The government can search any package it wants that is being imported into the country.
This.
If I get a packaged Fed Ex'd from the US to Australia (which is something I do on a semi regular basis) it still has to pass customs and quarantine. For some things I have to do a customs declaration as I did for some knives and a bottle of spirits that you cant get in Oz (yep you can import liquor, but you still have to pay tax on it).
So it's not a snooping issue. It's Australia post trying to make more money and stay relevant in the market in an age where traditional post is almost dead. Personally I think it's a good thing that Oz post is doing this, more competition and all that.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
To some degree, however not really.
Tire life depends on tread wear.
The higher the tread wear, the less sticky the tire.
So tire life (mileage) also depends on tire performance.
High performance tires, or stickier tires, don't last long. If you get a very long lasting tire, it'll be a great highway tire, but not as good at handling and breaking distance.
I wonder what is special about Oregon.
No sales tax.
As an example: Magic the gathering cards. US site: http://sales.starcitygames.com... AU site:http://shop.goodgames.com.au/trading-card-games/magic-the-gathering/boosters-and-boxes/magic-2014-core-set-booster-box.html So with a $65 difference I'll happily take that $30 shipping hit. Note: Good games is one of the biggest games store franchise in the country and their prices are about the lowest you'll get.
Completely missed my point. GP post was talking about the cost of a specific tire changing based on there being a middle man. I'm not talking about different brands/models.
Stay close to the beach? Good idea! There are only crocodiles, jellyfish, cone shells, blue ringed octopus, sharks, spiders, snakes, bees, various dangerous species of fish, dingos, and the risk of severe dehydration and sunburn there. You should be fairly safe from the cane toads there.
Compared to the outback, that's paradise mate!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Which is pretty much true for any government in any part of the world. There are certain mutually-agreed exceptions, such as countries within the Schengen region not searching packages from other Schengen countries without prior evidence of a crime (e.g., sniffer bees drawing attention to the package), but generally it's the case that all mail into or out of a country is subject to search for contraband. Which includes paper money.
There's this thing called tax ...
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I've made a lot of international purchases from Australia without ever using using a forwarding service to hide my location. There are a lot of retailers in the US that are happy to ship to Australia and that can mean it arrives here 3-4 days after the order is placed. Ordering from retailers in Europe and throughout Asia is often possible. US retailers have a right to set their policies and very little of what I buy is actually made in the US anyway so there are generally other options when US retailers will not ship here.
In the past, I have had the help of friends in the US to deal with a few retailers that wouldn't accept by Australian credit card for online purchases, while I was actually in the US...