HockeyPulse.com.au

Hi
seems my original post has sparked some discussion, some more heated than others.

I am all for supporting local - or in my case even inter-state "local" - shops. I just don't think I should be supporting local greed. The volumes can and never will be huge here in Australia, and shipping etc costs are of course relatively higer as well for local shops. Still, IMHO this does not justify 2x prices compared to e.g. USA.

Cheers, skate on
Mika

You are correct that shipments with a value less than AUD 1,000.00 will slip through the system with out picking up any duty and GST. However the very worst you are going to pay in duty is 5% however you will find that skates, sticks pucks and a lot of the other gear is covered by tariff concessions that allow duty free entry, that just leaves you with your 10% GST. However there are still all those others costs that have previously been mentioned that also have to be fractured into keeping and maintaining an adequate stock level.

What is the GP% on hockey equipment in Australian retailers that is the big question? The taxes and shipping are really irrelevant, with any retail product you have a LUC that factors in all of these things, you then set a sell price based on a GP you wish to achieve. This should cover all your overheads and leave you with a profit.

Inevitably if you reduce your expected GP, therefore reducing your sell price, you should in theory increase sales. The theory is sound and works in most retail areas so why not hockey equipment?

My assumption as a customer is that there is a large profit being made by Australian retailers on hockey equipment. Yet there is a larger market potential then is being tapped which is evident by the number of players that purchase equipment overseas. If Australian hockey retailers tried reducing their expected GP with the aim of increasing sales maybe everyone would be happy?

from talking to a few friends who have shops*, the retailers themselves could not lower the prices to match the pricing of the USA - their cost price from the supplier was about the same as the retail price in the USA. If we're saying all buyers act rationally, that only leaves you with whatever the shipping cost would be to add on to a product and cover profit plus overheads (and unless people 'need it now' they can't charge extra for the convenience - though I wonder if they could have differential pricing i.e. pay X and wait to get it when the next container comes in, or pay X+Y to get it now, whether you say that is a discount for waiting or a surcharge for convenience is just which way you look at it)

I hope the model that Addlon/Skaters Network are working on with the shops drives some business back to local stores, without the local stores you're pretty much screwed when things break/go wrong and you can't wait for a replacement order from o/s.