Sick of being ripped off

[cadium]

Why is it that we are so bloody ripped off in New Zealand.
There's the usual tripe about shipping cost to NZ and GST but in truth it goes a lot further than that.

Take the new Honda Africa Twin DCT.

in the USA it is NZ$18500
in the UK (with 20% VAT!) it is NZ$20400
in Australia (basically the same shipping costs as NZ, 10%GST) it is NZ$18873. If you take the austrlia price and add 5% extra GST you get NZ$ 19533!

in New Zealand $23999 +ON ROADS. However you look at it the is more than $4000 too expensive and for what? Nothing but greedy profiteering.

[pritch]

Why is it that we are so bloody ripped off in New Zealand.
There's the usual tripe about shipping cost to NZ and GST but in truth it goes a lot further than that.

Take the new Honda Africa Twin DCT.

in the USA it is NZ$18500
in the UK (with 20% VAT!) it is NZ$20400
in Australia (basically the same shipping costs as NZ, 10%GST) it is NZ$18873. If you take the austrlia price and add 5% extra GST you get NZ$ 19533!

in New Zealand $23999 +ON ROADS. However you look at it the is more than $4000 too expensive and for what? Nothing but greedy profiteering.

I can answer all that in just two words. "Blue Wing".

[EJK]

[Banditbandit]

The extra $4,000+ is a Pink Tax.

[jasonu]

Mate, being ripped off in NZ doesn't end with motorbikes. The whole country is one big fucking rip-off.

[Maha]

Mate, being ripped off in NZ doesn't end with motorbikes. The whole country is one big fucking rip-off.

Not true Pak n Save leg of lamb $10.99kg is good buying.

[cadium]

Mate, being ripped off in NZ doesn't end with motorbikes. The whole country is one big fucking rip-off.

Yeah I know, low wages and extremely high prices. Piss poor food quality at astronomical prices (I ate like in king in the UK and Europe for a fraction of the price) .
But that $4000 really rankles! (and no I'm not buying one). What's the bloody reason for it?

if it really is just Blue Wing then they really need to go! I image the margin for most importers of motorcycles is somewhere around 5-% ($1000 max on 20000?). Blue wing would be making (opinion only) 5x that? If we all stop buying hondas for a while they will go away pretty rapidly (not going to happen I know).

[EJK]

Not true Pak n Save leg of lamb $10.99kg is good buying.

And the Warehouse, where everybody gets a bargain.

[nerrrd]

Mate, being ripped off in NZ doesn't end with motorbikes. The whole country is one big fucking rip-off.

This. Like it or not we're a backwater with a tiny population, with expectations far beyond our real economy's ability to deliver. Business tends towards monopolies, duopolies etc where it can, as the best way to compete is to have no competition or as little as possible.

But in a backwater like ours this may well be the only way to stay in business with an 'acceptable' level of return. So I don't blame Blue Wing too much, in a way you're lucky the DCT is available at all in NZ – it's not on other models (like my bike) despite it being available for years overseas. Maybe the premium is to cover the cost of training the Honda service people in maintaining a DCT transmission, given very few are likely to be sold here.

[pritch]

But that $4000 really rankles! (and no I'm not buying one). What's the bloody reason for it?

There have been similar conversations on KB previously. Blue Wing almost always price new models too high. After some months, or perhaps a year, they drop the price a few thousand which pisses off everybody who already bought one. (There are threads here about that too.) It's a totally witless business model, but they persist. I get the impression they are really only interested in selling farm bikes.

I hate "Australasian agents" they are usually based in Sydney and the couldn't care less about New Zealand. Sometimes they don't even bother to answer enquiries. For Blue Wing I'd make an exception, if they went bung and we got an Australasian agent it would almost have to be an improvement.

[jasonu]

Yeah I know, low wages

The hourly rate for what I do is around $5 per hour more in NZ than what I get here but I am still way better off when considering day to day stuff like milk, butter and beer.
Big ticket items, waaaaay more affordable here.

[Old Steve]

You're buying the wrong brand of bike!

Suzuki Boulevard M50/Intruder M800

NZ NZ$ 11.995
US US$ 8559 NZ$ 11,743
Australia A$ 10,990 NZ$ 11,496
GB UKP 6,990 NZ$ 12,592

That's a spread of about NZ$ 800, and NZ is right in the middle. Australia is 10% GST, so their corrected 15% GST figure would be NZ$ 12,018

Suzuki NZ !

[Moi]

Yeah I know, low wages and extremely high prices. Piss poor food quality at astronomical prices (I ate like in king in the UK and Europe for a fraction of the price)...

Statements like this always raise two questions in my mind:

1. How long have you been here?

2. Why did you move here?

Must start taking my anti-cynic pills again...

[pritch]

Suzuki NZ !

Well that's going a bit far, but the rest of your information is good and actually isolates the problem.

I did an exercise when a new Honda model was announced overseas, I compared the price of similar capacity bikes. When the bikes were on their way a dealer phoned and asked if I would pay $14,000 for one. I said no, it was a $12,000 bike. He wasn't happy, but he got progressively unhappier as over the ensuing months I kept asking when they were going to drop the price. He said they wouldn't, but they did - to $12,000.

[cadium]

Statements like this always raise two questions in my mind:

1. How long have you been here? 41 years, you?

2. Why did you move here? My parents brought me to NZ. I ate like a king when on HOLIDAY in the UK/ Europe.

Must start taking my anti-cynic pills again...

Yep, better double up on the pills. I have lived here longer than half the population and I didn't move to NZ out of personal choice. My personal opinion in New Zealand has great scenery and nature (somewhat spoiled in recent years by dairy farming), extremely poor consumer prices, atrocious education, high taxes and an economy sliding into overall poverty. I have watched as owning a family home has gone from being possible with one wage earner, to two wage earners, to not possible on two full time wages. I see the commerce commission not prevent monopolies and duopolies but actively allow them. Every year companies want more profit while supplying the same quantity of goods (or less), all the while making sure their employees don't get more than a 2% pay rise. And after all the money has been tapped out of the buying public then what? We stop buying insurance, stop buying meat and dairy because it is just too expensive. And so greed leads to economic collapse. It is already happening.