Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/01/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]It's all really simple. Companies charge in each market what they can get away with. If you are a company that dominates its market, as Adobe does, you have market power and you will use it. Before the advent of online shopping, markets were fragmented, and so prices on photo gear, for example, were far lower in the most competitive markets than elsewhere. Japanese tourists buying Nikon cameras in New York etc. This was true even within the US--I lived in Florida when I got into photography in the 1980s, and the prices in Tampa were far higher than in New York. In the UK, prices are higher than in the US, and in Spain, they are higher still, mainly because most Spanish people do not speak foreign languages and are not comfortable shopping at a German or UK web retailer, so they can be fleeced--and are. Cheers, Nathan On 2 Jan 2014, at 06:15, lrzeitlin at aol.com wrote: > Howard. > You are right. I received the original post from a friend who claimed it > came from an Adobe PR. I was so astonished that I had to check it out with > the only Australian I knew who might be familiar with the pricing. I know > that when I lived in the UK most photo and computer gear was about 50% > more expensive than in the US. Every time I went back home I carried a > shopping list from all my Welsh colleagues. When I checked your > information I saw that it did come from the How to Geek website. But is it > true? What a markup!? > Larry Z > - - - - > That certainly doesn't sound like a press release from Adobe! It condemns > the publishers rather than tariffs. > > Looks to me like it's from "Geek Trivia" on the How-To Geek website: > > http://www.howtogeek.com/trivia/rather-than-buy-locally-its-cheaper-to-fly-roundtrip-from-australia-to-the-us-for-what/ > > > ?howard > > On Jan 1, 2014, at 11:34 AM,?lrzeitlin at aol.com?wrote: > > Goeff, > Is this really true? It's from an Adobe press release. > "Australians frequently complain about the price of imported software, and > rightfully so. From operating systems to applications, the price of > software is typically 50% or so higher than it is in the United States. > In fact, the price of Adobe Creative Suite (of which Photoshop is one of > the most famous elements) is so expensive in Australia ($4,334 as of > mid-2013), that it?s actually cheaper to book a round trip flight to the > U.S. and purchase a copy while visiting for $2599. Based on the average > cost of flights over the last year, you?d save around $600 pulling the > stunt. > While it would be easy to blame import tariffs or other government > intrusions for the absurdly high prices, the blame rests almost entirely > on the software publishers. The Australian government has conducted > multiple inquiries into why local prices are so high, going as far as > summoning representatives from Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe to justify why > they gouge Australian purchasers so severely." > Larry Z > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > Nathan Wajsman Alicante, Spain http://www.frozenlight.eu http://www.greatpix.eu Books: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=wajsman&x=0&y=0 PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws Image licensing: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman Blog: http://www.nathansmusings.eu/