Quote from: Xenomrph on Jun 07, 2020, 08:58:22 AM
I was actually talking about this on Thursday with one of my friends who manages a local GW store near my work, his explanation was that there's a lot of duty fees and taxes they have to factor into the prices of the models when shipping to Australia, so it's less GW's fault for not understanding how currency conversions work or just sticking it to you guys "just cuz", and more of your country's government slapping fines on imported goods and GW having to jack up the prices to compensate.
1) I'm in NZ, not 'Straya.
2)While there is
some truth in that argument, it's pretty disingenuous. Let's compare:
Primaris Captain (UK country of origin, so baseline price)
The ratio of about 2NZD to 1GBP has been largely consistent for 20 or so years, so this is a very average conversion rate:
Great Unclean One
But the tariffs! The Taxes! I can hear you saying. Let's compare to other, similar products (IE; plastic fantasy/sci-fi miniatures). I'll be staying with the baseline price being country-of-origin, and using the same local webstore for all comparisons. This store also explicitly mentions when it's discounting something, as seen in the spoilered pic below.
Spoiler
FFG Storm Troopers
Apparently Fantasy Flight Games doesn't have to pay the tax that nearly doubles the price of the goods. Odd. But they're American. Let's look at another British company, I believe also based out of Nottingham, just like GW:
Warlord Orc Warband
Hmmmm.The truth of the matter is that GW set their "price bands" in AU/NZ in the late 90's when things were quite different, but has kept us up to speed with their global price increases (which were every year at one point). There's nothing involved other than the idea of a captive market, especially since they did their best to stop independent stores selling internationally - largely successfully.
