Sick of being ripped off

[AllanB]

Moaning bastards - you are all happy to buy those bikes when they are discounted! What about slutty old Suzuki and it's yearly Summerfest?

Mate got a huge discount off a BMW - happy man.

So if the ride you want is discounted tomorrow you'll stand up and proudly proclaim "no sir, I will not devalue the price of previous purchasers machines, I will not - I will pay top dollar sir"


Best Country in the world - proved over the past 6 years of global economic downturn where much larger countries are going broke. Aussie is now heading downward with the plummeting cost of ore, Greece is fucked. Ireland has been fucked for years. England is trying to go alone (this will be interesting), anyone for the Middle East?

Indeed now the media is bitching about to many people wanting to come to NZ to live (must be the shit food) - ironic as I remember them bitching about to many leaving some years back ....

[Laava]

Always cracks me up listening to the doomsayers predicting the imminent demise of this country or that. Everything goes in cycles, of rises and falls, not always predictable and never as bad as people make out. You have no choice but to roll with it. I am including the weather in that as well.
There are a lot of countries in this world that would suck to live in compared to NZ. I have been to plenty of them.
And, yeah, buy a Suzuki

[Ocean1]

Yep sent Blue Wing the story of my disappointing financial position and requested a partial refund. Even included photos of it in custom Castrol Edwards paint job with added bling.
Got a letter back complementing me on how nice my bike looked and to enjoy riding it.

Good onya. Still reckon that with enough negative press they'd come around.

There's some serious discrepancies in pricing with BMW too, check out US prices for a GS1200R.

[Ocean1]

Agree that NZ's got a big problem with rip off pricing and low wages for ordinary people. It's also got a problem where a lot of employers can't get staff for basic jobs. Housing market's completely out of control. We've also got a corporate culture of churning managers - they only stay in one place for a few years, make changes, pad out their CV's, leave dysfunction behind. Our economy naturally moves to monopolies or stable duopolies which then extort the market for every buck they can get.

We've been mismanaged politically for a long time.

Unfortunately Kiwi's just love to fight each other, but we're pretty bad at supporting each other... anyone proposing change had better be prepared to fight all comers, and be prepared to do it alone.

That said, I've got a few ideas:

Ban exclusive supply contracts. I'm sure that the big boys in the food and groceries trades are using these to make startup competition impossible... how can you run an alternative supermarket chain if nobody is allowed to supply you?

Limit company premises geographically. There's a head office, then there's a radius around them (say 100 - 500 km's). Outside that radius, they can't own, lease, rent, whatever... Goods can be sold outside radius of course. The idea here is to have a measureable, enforceable limit to monopolies.

No company can own another company. If they do buy one, assets transfer to the purchaser name, branding has to change to the purchaser's. Geographic limit still applies, assets outside the radius simply can't be bought in the first place.

Place a time limit on how quickly shares / derivatives / bonds etc can be sold after purchase... and make illegal the practise of selling short, ie selling it before you actually own it.

Have a good long look at the Universal Basic Income idea... and dump the dole. Keep sickness benefits. UBI to cover basic clothing, food, rent, always comes in no matter what, doesn't have a stand down period if you walk off a shit job, doesn't get clipped or reduced if you get a starter job, lets people move off the dole mentality into a more and better work means a better life mentality.

Overseas (non-citizen, non-resident) property buyers allowed to build brand new homes only (like Australia).

Tax vacant properties. Not sure how detected and enforced or how much, but land banking has got to stop.

Link immigration allowed to housing availability.

Require a minimum period of time working in a company before being allowed to enter a managerial role.

Introduce a Tobin tax: a percentage on every purely financial transaction, ie taking out a loan, purchasing investments... anything where it's money buying money.

Reduce GST. Better: eliminate it.

Right, got a few things to do, have to move on... Interested to hear what people think.

I like some of 'em.

I like the general idea, but they've got to be viable insomuch as they need to generate more revenue overall than they cost to run/manage. And they need to represent a negative feedback control process, in other words the behaviour you're encouraging needs to be sustainable in it's own right.

And yes, I also don't like seeing the Commerce Commission upholding Winston Wallboards complaint, (for example) that a local builder was "dumping" Gib into the Ak building market when all they were doing was perfectly legitimately importing it from a competitor, for their own use) at about half Winston's price. Which, by the way is 40% dearer in Ak than the same NZ product sold by them in Perth. As you say, give that their primary function is, (or should be) to supress anti-competitive behaviour it's a fucking disgrace.

[mossy1200]

GS1200R.

Took my workmate in for a look at lams bikes and man that GS1200R has the widest petrol tank I have ever seen.

[AllanB]

It's a utterly pointless exercise comparing the price of bike X with offshore pricing.

If you are interested in a bike like the Honda African Twin check the price against comparable 'adventure' bikes within NZ - Triumph, BMW, Suzuki, Aprilia, MotoGuzzu, Ducati, Kawasaki. Then see how it stacks up.

A TM check finds Ducatis and BMW's in the low 30's, Triumph is low 20's, Suzuki $19, Honda starting at a dollar under $20k

Looks like it is well priced within the market it is selling in.

[Ocean1]

Took my workmate in for a look at lams bikes and man that GS1200R has the widest petrol tank I have ever seen.

Aye, about 700k's worth. You can certainly feel the difference when you full up, and I've used the Bro's one as the fleet tanker before now.

[Ocean1]

It's a utterly pointless exercise comparing the price of bike X with offshore pricing.

Unless you're attempting to discover which local distributor is punching the ticket the most.

And let's face it, the price the rest of the world pays for a given bike is almost certainly a better measure of it's value than whatever the price is here, and who wants to pay more for a bike than it's worth?

[AllanB]

Unless you're attempting to discover which local distributor is punching the ticket the most.

And let's face it, the price the rest of the world pays for a given bike is almost certainly a better measure of it's value than whatever the price is here, and who wants to pay more for a bike than it's worth?

Unless you intend to import your own the price here is the price here. If the buying public do not believe it is a fair value it will sit on the show room floor. We have all seen them from all brands - then sold at a most agreeable price. Blue Wing unfortunately appear to have a bit of a history of this.

Shop around NZ - small country, dealers are competitive, you can save thousands.

[Ocean1]

Unless you intend to import your own the price here is the price here. If the buying public do not believe it is a fair value it will sit on the show room floor. We have all seen them from all brands - then sold at a most agreeable price. Blue Wing unfortunately appear to have a bit of a history of this.

Shop around NZ - small country, dealers are competitive, you can save thousands.

Correct. But the distributorship infers a monopoly for local markets, and monopolies are extremely unproductive.

So whereas Blue Wing lose sales because their pricing isn't competitive, they're obviously happy that the extra profit on sales they do make cover their costs. The loser in that equation is the potential end user: they're deprived of the option of a reasonably priced Honda.

So again, how do we know their prices are artificially inflated? We check what off shore distributors are charging.

[AllanB]

Offshore charging would be relevant as a check if we knew the factory had set up a globally equal retail model - a model that meant retail prices were say income or exchange rate driven so the purchasers national buying power was relatively equal country to country.

Now maybe they do and you are correct but I bet it is not the case, and a USA dealer who will order 30 African Twins will get a better price than a NZ dealer who orders 3.

Years back when Kawasaki had quite a hit on the BR250 it did not sell well in NZ. A local dealer commented on this when in Japan and the factory was very surprised - until they found out the RRP being set in NZ. It was higher than recommended by the factory, way high compared to the NZ market. The NZ importer had decided it was such a good bike it should have a premium price attached and sold it to the dealers in such a manner.

USA forums often talk of Harley tax.


Are we getting ripped off? Are we surrounded by rich motorcycle dealers?

It was only five years ago on KB we were shitting our selves over the number of NZ motorcycle shops shutting down. Heck another in Christchurch is closing doors. Can't be due to making to much money ripping buyers off.

[jasonu]

True story
nz beef and lamb
nz scallops
bluff oysters
crayfish
west coast whitebait
central otago cherries and apricots
nelson berries
pavalova
paua
stewart island blue cod
........

All good stuff. Best in the world???
Have you actually spent any time out of NZ?
(and a weekend in Sydney doesn't count).

[Ocean1]

Offshore charging would be relevant as a check if we knew the factory had set up a globally equal retail model - a model that meant retail prices were say income or exchange rate driven so the purchasers national buying power was relatively equal country to country.

Now maybe they do and you are correct but I bet it is not the case, and a USA dealer who will order 30 African Twins will get a better price than a NZ dealer who orders 3.

Years back when Kawasaki had quite a hit on the BR250 it did not sell well in NZ. A local dealer commented on this when in Japan and the factory was very surprised - until they found out the RRP being set in NZ. It was higher than recommended by the factory, way high compared to the NZ market. The NZ importer had decided it was such a good bike it should have a premium price attached and sold it to the dealers in such a manner.

USA forums often talk of Harley tax.


Are we getting ripped off? Are we surrounded by rich motorcycle dealers?

It was only five years ago on KB we were shitting our selves over the number of NZ motorcycle shops shutting down. Heck another in Christchurch is closing doors. Can't be due to making to much money ripping buyers off.

You're almost certainly right, the international distributor will set prices based on factors other than the cost of manufacture, including their assessment of what the local market will pay. But does it matter which part of the supply chain is responsible? The fact remains that in many cases we pay a premium for the same product being sold elsewhere at a discount, funded in part by profits from sales here.

It's the sort of market manipulation that's responsible for the significantly higher cost of living here compared to overseas and gives international corporations a bad name for a good reason. Selling shit for the same, reasonable profit everywhere doesn't make as much as profiling individual markets, but it's honest, respectable and ultimately fair behaviour.

[skippa1]

All good stuff. Best in the world???
Have you actually spent any time out of NZ?
(and a weekend in Sydney doesn't count).

Sure have and for what its worth the food in Australia is shit as far as I am concerned. Travelled extensively and stand by my statement.....

[Ocean1]

All good stuff. Best in the world???
Have you actually spent any time out of NZ?
(and a weekend in Sydney doesn't count).

Either way he'll find the above often cost less off shore than it does here.

The complete opposite to what we find with imported shit.

It's a double hit our economy could do without.