Why price difference for Macbook pro on apple.co.nz and apple.com?

I'm confused about the price of macbook pro:
On apple.co.nz MacBook Pro 15" 2.16GHz is priced NZ$4039
Now, on apple.com the same product is priced US$1999

Let's do the math,
I go to xe.com click on currency converter, US$1999==> NZ$3005

??????????????????
How come!
where did that $1000 go??
or is it that it's cheaper to buy it from US?
I mean, if I bought it online on US website is there extra cost on the way to NZ (customs etc) which add up to 1000? seems unlikely.....

Please tell me what's going on!!

 

There is no particular explanation other than that the US market is segmented from the AU-NZ market, and thus Apple can and does charge massive premia. Dell does precisely the same thing.

Try one of those package forwarding services.

 

wow!!
thank you for that advice!!
I hope customs doesnt charge me much though...
any reliable package forwarding service you would recommend?
searching on internet gives me http://www.mailforwarding.biz/
but I don't know how reliable these companies are...
thanks!!

 

Well... I think it has a lot more to do with things like sales taxes and possibly import things. As far as I know no other country is as cheap as the US on computers etc, mainly because of their low (and sometimes nonexistant) sales taxes.

 

Yup, it has a lot to do with import and shipping fees. And I'm sure there are other fees involved with exporting units.
Though, I'm not a global economist, so I can't say too much about it. But yeah, that would be a fairly good educated guess.
I know that Europe's prices are also higher due to their VAT charges.

 

Unless you have a USD bank account, your bank is going to charge you a hefty handling fee for buying stuff from in US Dollars. Furthermore, a bank's currency exchange rate differs quite greatly from the currency converter at xe.com (in other words, banks rip you off).
So, the smartest move might be to purchase a mac when you are on holiday somewhere abroad where the prices are cheaper.

 

Most of the reasons as to why it is more expensive outside the US have been already covered above. Cost of shipping, packaging, import tax and duties, insurance, and of course the cost of hedging the price against future currency fluctuations (this is how they manage to keep the price relatively stable for a while).

 

Try again.

GST = 10%
Customs duties = 6%

Calculated on the unrealistic retail US value, that brings the value $3016 AUD. Far removed from the actual retail price of $4000 AUD.

Unless Apple is grossly incompetent in the hedging that they undertake, and employ endocrinologists to ship their laptops in diamond-encrusted boats, a very significant premium is charged. Moreover, most other companies price far closer to parity, and within a difference that could potentially be explained by tax, import duties, shipping and insurance. Apple and Dell simply choose to charge far greater prices to those in the Antipodes.

Sorry, I can't help you out on a forwarding service. One of the successful and reliable ones folded a few months ago and I don't know if there are any other trustworthy ones.

 

Can someone help me calculate how Macs are so incredible cheap here? I can't figure out how Apple has such bargain prices down here in Brazil. Must be the warm climate, drive sales people crazy.

http://latam.apple.com/pricelist/br/
MA600LL/A
MacBook Pro (15.4" TFT/2.0GHz/512MB/80GB/128MB VRAM/SuperDrive/iSight/FrontRow and Apple Remote) English
R$ 9699.00 = US$ 4532.24 (US$1.00 <=> R$2.140)

 

***** * ***** lol. Almost three times the price in the US.

As I was saying, Apple are dicks.

 

Whats the current race exchange you used for your calculation? And what model were you looking at? I'm curious if there is a lot more going on than normal padding and custom/shipping charges.

And are the customs and GST charges the same in AU and NZ?

 

GST in New Zealand is 12.5%
GST in Australia is 10%

And Apple NZ's price is already inclusive of GST.

Almost everything else electronics/computer wise are priced more expensive officially in AU-NZ compared to the US or Asia-Pacific. Dell (as someone already mentioned) is a prime example. Hence I always order my Dell notebooks from Hong Kong. Even after factoring in express shipping and import fees (which is GST charged over the NZ$700 tax-exempt limit), it still comes out much cheaper than if I were to get an identical model in New Zealand.

I always have a saying, that the RRP (Recommended Retail Price) or MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) really stands for:

Recommended Ripoff Price, or, Manufacturer Suggested Ripoff Price.

They charge more for different markets (in this case AU-NZ) simply because the market supports it and they can still sell the same amount, i.e. because they just can. I am sure someone with an Economics degree can give you a more in-depth resoning to that.

 

its the same in India. everything is expensive
even ipods selling at 249$ (should be at) are selling for around 347$
its sad cause only u guys in US or Uk get all the good deals while we sit here with bad prices (sad)