Postage
Isn't this just the addition of $14.97 postage from the US?
Seems to be.
Amazon has launched a semi-localised version of its Kindle store for Australian customers, complete with links back to America and some prices quoted in US dollars. As an example, El Reg would draw readers' attention here, where Amazon offers Australian customers the 2.2 GHz quad-core Kindle Fire HDX 7”, with WiFi and between …
I wonder if the price difference is GST (it seems pretty close to 10%).
It follows that if Amazon has established an Australian entity the sales from that entity will be subject to the 10% Goods and Services Tax (GST) than applies to "all" Australian sales.
The US pricing usually has applicable Sales Tax added to the listed price.
Interestingly, although the 400lb Gorilla is now prepared to pay us in Australian Dollars, into an Australian bank account, I still need to submit a W8-BEN if I don't want them to withold 30% and hand that over to the IRS.
Also, the minimum price on Amazon Oz for the 70% royalty rate to kick in is AUD3.99 - rather than the US2.99 or thereabouts figure in most of the other Amazon national stores. Of course, things could be worse - you only get the 70% rate in the Indian and Mexican stores if you sign up for Select, which grants Amazon complete electronic exclusivity for that title... We're now in the unenviable position of raising prices for Australian readers, raising prices for everybody, or accepting lower royalties. Yay Amazon...
They've made things quite a bit easier to get on board to avoid the 30% tax now. 20 minutes on the phone to the IRS and I had my precious EIN which Amazon then gladly consumed from me with another 20 minutes filling out their tempated W8BEN.
Good luck.
i have bought about 400 plus books on kindle and a lot of books cd,s and other things. I wrote to Amazon yesterday and told them that if they wanted to keep my business they could change their prices accordingly.
They answered me with a total brush off about being glad to recieve the feedback.
I am sick of startups raising their prices to the dearest in the world just because they can get away with it in Australia. Do not buy from them then maybe they will get the message" we do not like being ripped off."
We may not like being ripped-off but it seems we like missing out on content and convenience even less. Hence piracy.
I have always been a bit on the fence about piracy (mostly because rhetoric is plentiful while accurate information remains scarce). On one hand, I figure that the correct way to protest unreasonably high prices is to simply not buy something. On the other hand, from a pragmatic view, piracy sends a message that people do want your content but at a lower price.
Is it the best way to say that? I don't know. I suppose the question is: how do we best show content producers/distributors that there is a strong market for their products, but that we expect to be charged comparable prices with the US?
(FWIW, my policy when I disagree is to not buy that item, rather than pirate it. I miss out on a lot by being stubborn but I have vast reserves of apathy to help me cope.)