Reading mode: Light Dark

A1 prices in oz

Go to last post
O

ozjeff

New member
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Location
Sydney, AU
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au? With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
 
everything is expensive here being less ppl and distance. best buy is at Ebay which sells for about $1100/, waiting for the price to drop further once the A2 is release. Dealer is HKG base and a friend bought a digital from him, no problems. Your decision.
ozjeff said:
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an
a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au?
With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year
you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
--
Yesterday is but todays memory, capture it on your D7
http://www.pbase.com/woofw/root
http://www.woofw5.PhotoShare.co.nz
 
My own theory is that new products can take up to 8 months before they become available in Australia. Business sense dictates that you don't discount a product until absolutely necessary.

It's not like we can duck over and pick one up in another country. In a sense, we are a captive market. Not fair I know but that's business.

Regards,
Niall
ozjeff said:
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an
a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au?
With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year
you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
--
==[ SIGNATURE ]=====
View my small photo gallery:
http://niall.shutterpoint.com
 
I share your grief as well. I've spent days and nights searching all around, and I've found two things that save money:
  • You can try and but it on eBay. There are prices starting around USD 640. Add postage, customs and GST and you'll still save a lot!
  • Try this link: http://www.ozelectro.com.au . They are the cheapest in Oz I've found so far, with prices inclusive of all costs and taxes. Give'em a call.
ozjeff said:
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an
a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au?
With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year
you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
--
  • Servus, MinoltaManiac
 
Thanks for all the help. ozelectro are the cheapest by far.

I have some friends going to the states next month so i might get them to get one for me. I just have to find out if the warranty is valid in australia. (it should be)
MinoltaManiac said:
  • You can try and but it on eBay. There are prices starting around
USD 640. Add postage, customs and GST and you'll still save a lot!
I've found so far, with prices inclusive of all costs and taxes.
Give'em a call.
ozjeff said:
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an
a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au?
With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year
you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
--
  • Servus, MinoltaManiac
Click to expand...
 
Now I understand why the two folks who bought my 707 and 7Hi were both from Australia--in fact- the 707 family recently said hello to me here on the forum.

I never thought about the price differences.

Sorry mate...and I must say the folks I sold to were delightful. The 7Hi was bought by a guy for his mom in the US and he e-mailed me his photo and I put it in the box with the 7Hi before I sent it off to his mom. The other couple are retirees.

Kind of adds a lot to get photos from the buyers.

Darn shame...

Regards.
MinoltaManiac said:
  • You can try and but it on eBay. There are prices starting around
USD 640. Add postage, customs and GST and you'll still save a lot!
I've found so far, with prices inclusive of all costs and taxes.
Give'em a call.
ozjeff said:
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an
a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au?
With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year
you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
--
  • Servus, MinoltaManiac
Click to expand...
 
As an Aussie - I feel your pain. I was talking to someone on DPChallenge the other week. They purchased an A1 from B&H Photo in New York. At the end of the day is cost him just on $1100 AUD. This included the Camera, Courier, Import Duty ($48) and GST (10% of camera and courier combined). It took less than a week to be couriered from New York to his door and B&H are fine with shipping overseas (which a lot of companies aren't).

Good luck. Let me know if you have questions.
ozjeff said:
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an
a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au?
With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year
you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
I checked out this site - what great prices they have. Of course that made me nervous and reading their FAQ hints that camera's quite often aren't Australian and will have international power plugs, etc with adaptors. So I guess it depends on how "Australian" you want the camera to be - plus once you factor this in I have seen better deals by going overseas yourself.

Having said that I will consider them when making my next purchase.
MinoltaManiac said:
  • You can try and but it on eBay. There are prices starting around
USD 640. Add postage, customs and GST and you'll still save a lot!
I've found so far, with prices inclusive of all costs and taxes.
Give'em a call.
ozjeff said:
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an
a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au?
With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year
you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
--
  • Servus, MinoltaManiac
Click to expand...
 
Mark Richard said:
As an Aussie - I feel your pain. I was talking to someone on
DPChallenge the other week. They purchased an A1 from B&H Photo in
New York. At the end of the day is cost him just on $1100 AUD.
This included the Camera, Courier, Import Duty ($48) and GST (10%
of camera and courier combined). It took less than a week to be
couriered from New York to his door and B&H are fine with shipping
overseas (which a lot of companies aren't).
Click to expand...
This is one more option for us, and by far the most affordable one.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I only hope B&H are nice people to deal with.

-MinoltaManiac
 
ozjeff said:
Thanks for all the help. ozelectro are the cheapest by far.

I have some friends going to the states next month so i might get
them to get one for me. I just have to find out if the warranty is
valid in australia. (it should be)
Click to expand...
I bought a D7i in Singapore 18 months or so ago. The 'standard' Minolta international warrentee didn't cover Australia.

At the time the price difference between local camera shops and Singapore was the equivalent to the return airfare to Singapore!. We wanted to take a short holiday anyway, so Singapore ended up being the destination.

Minolta Singapore have a 'shop front' so I asked them, they had no idea why Australia wasn't covered and suggested it was possibly due to the local agents not being appropiatelty trained.

They did say if they would be happy to do any warrentee work out of Singapore and if it was a warrentee repair the cost of shipping it back would be covered.

As it stands the warrentee expired and I had no call for it.

One reason AU prices might be inflated as the local agent might be padding the prices to cover the extra costs of shipping any warrentee work to Singapore for attention.

A lot of technology products are not repaired here (if they are even repairable) they are shipped to SIngapore or Hong Kong for attention.

A Seagate hard drive failed in one of my servers last year - the local agents said it had to go to Singapore. Singapore shipped back a replacement. Meanwhile my server was down a drive for 4 weeks... (These are 5 year warentee server drives. What they don't say is that after 12 months it's back to the apac headquarters for repair, not an exchange localy).
 
http://www.centre.net.au a week ago and all is ok so far. I bought the "international version" for about $A1360 and they provide a warranty which you can extend out a year if you want. I picked it up from the office (near Tullamarine airport) but they also deliver. It's the real thing, made in Japan, with a late-ish serial number. It works fine. I was also happy with the service from http://www.centre.net.au .

I have also bought a lense from BHPhoto.com and they were good too.

I would not get an A1 from ebay unless you are very sure about the seller as you never know where it is coming from and could be a grey market one if the seller is unreliable. Some sellers offer "free gifts" of additional lenses and so on but from what I can tell, these free gifts are of dubious quality.

Unless you buy in the US (or wherever) you wil pay more here and it is outrageous that some shops are still selling them for $A1900 (read and weep!) when the US dollar has fallen so much. You should also be careful when you do buy in the US as I am not sure if the warranties carry over.

Just my thoughts!

Feeber12
 
Feeber12 said:
http://www.centre.net.au a week ago and all is ok so far. I bought the
"international version" for about $A1360 and they provide a
warranty which you can extend out a year if you want. I picked it
up from the office (near Tullamarine airport) but they also
deliver. It's the real thing, made in Japan, with a late-ish
serial number. It works fine. I was also happy with the service
from http://www.centre.net.au .
Click to expand...
Good link too, but it looks it hasn't been updated for a long time -- the A1 price listed there is AU $1859.9!!! Maybe we should give'em a call and ask about current price?

-MinoltaManiac
 
Mark Richard said:
As an Aussie - I feel your pain. I was talking to someone on
DPChallenge the other week. They purchased an A1 from B&H Photo in
New York. At the end of the day is cost him just on $1100 AUD.
This included the Camera, Courier, Import Duty ($48) and GST (10%
of camera and courier combined). It took less than a week to be
couriered from New York to his door and B&H are fine with shipping
overseas (which a lot of companies aren't).
Click to expand...
Just one more thing -- what about Mack 5 Year Warranty option they have ... is it valid in Oz or in the USA only? Is it worth investing into ($59) ... ?
  • Servus, MinoltaManiac
 
2 years ago the best price for a D7 (no i, u, Hi, ...) was 1625,- EUR which at the current rates equates to 2110,- USD.

Luckily the Euro was just introduced and I was able to get it from Luxemburg at approx 1100,- eur = +-1400,- USD

For that kind of money I now can have a DSLR. :((( but .... I would have missed out on all those (for me) priceless pictures.

Ronald.
MinoltaManiac said:
Mark Richard said:
As an Aussie - I feel your pain. I was talking to someone on
DPChallenge the other week. They purchased an A1 from B&H Photo in
New York. At the end of the day is cost him just on $1100 AUD.
This included the Camera, Courier, Import Duty ($48) and GST (10%
of camera and courier combined). It took less than a week to be
couriered from New York to his door and B&H are fine with shipping
overseas (which a lot of companies aren't).
Click to expand...
Just one more thing -- what about Mack 5 Year Warranty option they
have ... is it valid in Oz or in the USA only? Is it worth
investing into ($59) ... ?
  • Servus, MinoltaManiac
Click to expand...
 
They update quite regularly (I bought my A1 from them as well). They offer two versions for many makes (International and Australian), the Australian version is always more expensive. I've also noticed that the price of the A1 (International) has gone up since I bought mine ($1386 vs $1563 now). The price you're quoting is the Australian version (through the local distributor rather than direct).

I also worry about buying from the US where they seem to have a return policy if you're not happy with the camera - whatever the reason (just from reading examples in the MTF). What prevents you from getting someone elses problem? In Australia, you don't have this luxury, you can only return products that are clearly faulty or do not perform as advertised. And because our market is quite small, I'd say that even with the centre.net.au warranty exchange policy, you'd have to be very unlucky to get a returned product. I wish we did have the exchange policy that you have in the US - then we could try out all types of cameras before committing ourselves.
MinoltaManiac said:
Feeber12 said:
http://www.centre.net.au a week ago and all is ok so far. I bought the
"international version" for about $A1360 and they provide a
warranty which you can extend out a year if you want. I picked it
up from the office (near Tullamarine airport) but they also
deliver. It's the real thing, made in Japan, with a late-ish
serial number. It works fine. I was also happy with the service
from http://www.centre.net.au .
Click to expand...
Good link too, but it looks it hasn't been updated for a long time
-- the A1 price listed there is AU $1859.9!!! Maybe we should
give'em a call and ask about current price?

-MinoltaManiac
Click to expand...
--

There are no limitations, only challenges - me (unless someone else said it first)

http://www.wyndhambusiness.com/PhotoGallery/
 
The international price must have only just gone up as I ordered mine at the old price ($A1360 or so) only about 4 weeks ago.

I agree with OzRay on the warranty thing here. It is not worth the hassle - Australia is just too far away. The reality is that camera and other electronics gear is just way more expensive here. For example, I got a Sony walkman for $A450 in Japan and it sells for $A900 here.

Grrrrr....

Feeber12
 
ozjeff said:
I have some friends going to the states next month so i might get
them to get one for me. I just have to find out if the warranty is
valid in australia. (it should be)
MinoltaManiac said:
I share your grief as well. I've spent days and nights searching
all around, and I've found two things that save money:
  • You can try and but it on eBay. There are prices starting around
USD 640. Add postage, customs and GST and you'll still save a lot!
I've found so far, with prices inclusive of all costs and taxes.
Give'em a call.

ozjeff wrote:
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
The price in Australia reflects how much the distributor can get away with and goes straight to his pocket. I have been watching this for some time for Nikon, Minlta and Cannon as I am thinking of buying one their SLR. The Price has nothing to do with population, distance or specific product - most cameras come out of the same factory with the same multi language instructions etc the only difference being the power plug. I have emailed their offshore head offices, they blame Australian distributor pricing policy and Australia blames them.

You do not get special service for the extra cost, you are lucky if you get any. If one person can export to Australia and you pay postage plus GST and they make a profit, why can't the distributor do the same on a larger scale at less transport cost and less insurance cost - the mathematics is basic. They want additional profit - it is that simple. They can not argue service under guarantee as they reimbursed for this cost (and the US still do it for less).

Let the internet and your fingers dictate where you buy.

It would be great to see a forum like this take up the issue, but as most users are US based and not impacted, that is unlikely.
ozjeff said:
ozjeff said:
ozjeff said:
Hi. Can anyone tell me why the cheapest price I could find for an
a1 in oz is $1800 while in the US you can pick them up for $750au?
With the australian dollar going from .48c US to .80c us in a year
you would think the price would be coming down.

If anyone in oz knows any a bit cheaper i would love to know where.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
--
  • Servus, MinoltaManiac
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top