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Australian Post Office Opens Mail Forwarding Warehouse In the USA

Posted by timothy on from the up-over-vs-down-under dept.

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.

22 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Other prisons are the same by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Funny

    You have to deliver the package to the prison office for inspection before prisoners can receive the delivery.

    1. Re:Other prisons are the same by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You have to deliver the package to the prison office for inspection before prisoners can receive the delivery.

      I'll have you know that in Oz, having criminals in your family history who were deported to Australia is actually a bit of a status symbol. Especially if you can trace them back to the First Fleet. I'm a bit pissed, as I can't do that as all my ancestors were free settlers.

      And the reason that the Brits started dumping convicts in Australia was partly because of some war or something that they had with a former colony that stopped them from sending the prisoners there.

      And in the words of some comic (who I can't remember)

      I'd rather live in a country founded by convicts, than one founded by Puritans

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    2. Re:Other prisons are the same by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...it's not being run by a corporation...

      You're kidding, right?

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    3. Re:Other prisons are the same by quenda · · Score: 2

      I'll have you know that in Oz,... I'm a bit pissed, ... the Brits ... some war or something that they had with a former colony

      I'm going to call you out as a fake Aussie. "Pissed" means drunk here (we say "pissed off"), and we never call the British "Brits".

    4. Re:Other prisons are the same by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm going to call you out as a fake Aussie. "Pissed" means drunk here (we say "pissed off"), and we never call the British "Brits".

      Struth mate[1]. Don't come the raw prawn with me. Pissed can have multiple meanings, and you sound more like a whining pom than any brit.

      And yeah .. I did bring the aerogard last weekend

      [1] And if you don't know how to parse that, then I hope your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    5. Re:Other prisons are the same by mjwx · · Score: 2

      You have to deliver the package to the prison office for inspection before prisoners can receive the delivery.

      I'll have you know that in Oz, having criminals in your family history who were deported to Australia is actually a bit of a status symbol. Especially if you can trace them back to the First Fleet. I'm a bit pissed, as I can't do that as all my ancestors were free settlers.

      And the reason that the Brits started dumping convicts in Australia was partly because of some war or something that they had with a former colony that stopped them from sending the prisoners there.

      And in the words of some comic (who I can't remember)

      I'd rather live in a country founded by convicts, than one founded by Puritans

      The interesting thing about penal transportation from England is that they never transported dangerous criminals, only petty criminals. So the majority of crimes were petty theft, unable to repay debt (there were debtors prisons back then) and being Irish (because displaying an Irish flag was considered sedition). The hardened criminals like rapists, murderers, politicians were imprisoned in England. So we call them POHMS (Prisoners of His/Her Majesty).

      One of the reasons Australia has such a high occurrences of Irish surnames is because a lot of the people transported here were sent here, just for being Irish.

      Also the Swan River Colony (what later became Perth, Western Australia) were the last to receive convicts in 1857. Technically we didn't even become Australia until federation in 1901.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  2. And to allow the NSA/Austrailian gov access to it? by SirGeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  3. Re:Good by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At the company I used to work for we ran into this but in reverse.
    A company in South Africa wanted to buy our software but they didn't want to pay the same as in the US they said it was too expensive for the market.
    The issue was that it was a lot more expensive for us to support customers outside the US and Canada than in the US and Canada. In the end they paid the same as everyone else.
    And yes we charged everyone he same rate but some nations really wanted us to take a lot less.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  4. I'm not clear by John+Jorsett · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:I'm not clear by jules_d'entremont · · Score: 2

      Do even huge online retailers like Amazon charge different prices depending on the country the items are going to?

      Of course they do, and we've known about it for years. The Canadian government started an investigation into the issue last year. Even cars manufactured in Canada are cheaper to buy in the U.S. than in Canada.

    2. Re:I'm not clear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Photoshop, MS Office etc., are 40% more expensive in Australasia. It comes from historical justifications because they needed to put products on board to get them there, not as many customers as the US, etc, and they're trying to maintain the markup premiums despite digital delivery. If you come from an Australasian IP then you'll pay a premium

    3. Re:I'm not clear by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      For a variety of reasons.

      The most obvious ones are Australian distributors with exclusivity deals - for some products like Adobe and Microsoft software, this is the primary reason why it costs more.

      Others include legal requirements - taxes, duties, support, warranties and other things, some of which only apply in Australia. So an Australian using this service might lose out on that or may find they need to ship the product back to the US because the Australian depot refuses to service it for not being purchased in Australia. Or maybe Australia forces a product to be warrantied for 2 years or more, while the US version is 90 days to a year, and stuff like that usually gets factored into the price. So some Australians might get confused when the product they buy only has a 1 year warranty because it was purchased through this service rather than through the Australian distributor (where it has 2 years). Apple products come to mind for this - if you buy it in Europe, you get the 2-3 years EU law provides (and pay for it), whereas if you bought it in the US, you get standard 1 year.

  5. Re:And to allow the NSA/Austrailian gov access to by nedlohs · · Score: 2

    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.

  6. Re:One has to expect this will be caught up with.. by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  7. Re:And to allow the NSA/Austrailian gov access to by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does ANYONE think that this would be happening if the gov agencies didn't think they could get something from it ?

    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!
  8. This isn't new by dmbrun · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:One has to expect this will be caught up with.. by Etherwalk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  10. This is All Wrong! by sexconker · · Score: 2

    document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].style.transform = "rotate(180deg)";

    There, that's better.

  11. Re:Good by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    It sounds like the software your company was selling either included a lot of skilled labor hours in the price, or required substantial localization and wasn't exactly a household product.

    Charging poorer customers less is really only doable when the per-unit costs are small enough that you still make money at the discounted rate. Often the case for software and media if support is essentially nonexistent and localization is sufficiently cheap or spread out across enough units; but that's more likely with mass-market software and somewhat less likely with more specialized products.

    I'm assuming from the tone of your post that the company you were with sold something comparatively expensive and specialized?

  12. 2 problems with this by jonwil · · Score: 2

    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)

  13. Re:Good by sdoca · · Score: 2

    The federal government in Canada is officially bilingual and provides services in both official languages. The only province that is bilingual is New Brunswick and it also provides services in both languages. Quebec is unilingual French, and is required to only provide services in that language. All other provinces are unilingual English.

  14. Re:One has to expect this will be caught up with.. by omnichad · · Score: 2

    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?