how much can a harness cost? My last one was about 150 and that was a kite waist harness.
Do you really need to save that $100
Fair enough if your saving like $500 on a $2000 board or something but for the sake of only 100 or so you may as well support your local shop.
I'm sure if you call a shop and ask them to post it to you it they would probably pay some of the postage.
Failing that use www.shipito.com its a US mail forwarding service. You buy stuff online get it sent to these guys and they will send it anywhere in the world.
Handy for when they don't sell things outside of the us.
Some US stores are forbidded to sell outside of the US by the manufacturers. Especially with Motorbike gear.
Sue is right.
Even though it may be a hundred dollars or so saved you probably have no one to help sort out waranty claims (if any). Risky business!!
do people really have that many warranty issues?
apart from np booms which seem to explode with clockwork regularity i'd be happy to buy gear from overseas. Especially when top of the line wavesails are like $600 each with the way the aussie dollar is going.
end of the day thou, I think we should be supporting local manufacturers. I priced a new nude waveboard a few months back, I think more people should consider them as they are priced really competitively, not to mention the massive amount of super talented west oz sailors using them. Will definately be getting one when my current board passes its used by.
It can't be that? We are the most or one of the most taxed people in North America (Quebec, Canada) and our price are usually as good as the big shop in Oregon and often better, I mean brand new equipement. While I was in Australia in 2004, boards was about 500$ more in Australia than in Canada and your money was better then ours and by comparing, it's still arround 500$ more at your place! The way windsurfing distribition is organised in your part of the world seems different than us for sure!
I totally forgot that you include taxe in your price! so it's 3000$ with no extra charge. I'M not suggesting to buy boards over seas, I'm trying to understand why boards and sails were that much more...but I forgot that your sales taxe are include in the price! So arround 200 is not that bad!! So for a JP Quads for example, this time of the year, could be easily cheaper than 3000$.
Should mention, if you are purchasing from overseas you generally don't have to pay sales tax from the country of origin. i.e. if you purchase something from the UK, you don't need to pay their VAT.
Regarding warranty issues, I didn't realise dealers in the windsurfing industry were getting such a raw deal. I can understand why they would be reluctant to help customers who didn't purchase equipment from them.
End of the day I still think the biggest issue is price. Most people don't like to get buyers remorse, and seeing gear they recently purchase available elsewhere cheaper will always tempt people away. Some people see this extra price premium they pay as justifiable for the service they receive, but others like me are fairly indifferent, or feel ripped off. Mainly because I've had very good experiances purchasing online (bike stuff and electronics), and buying locally, has burnt me a few times. I'm currently waiting for a sail I purchased to arrive, its been 14 days, it was purchased in Oz. Doesn't really bother me as it hasn't been windy, but point is I've had items arrive at my doorstep from the UK in 4 days.
Looks like retailers are trying to address this, by losing the distributors and importing themselves which cuts costs for them. Funny that eh,
feel its a bit expensive? just take up kiting, cheaper.....
windsurfing is affordable, just compare it to biking, motorbiking etc.... all sports cost a bit, but you get good value from wind kit...
Sales volume matters.
Imagine you start a business on the cheap by living at your mum's house, and all you ask is a wage of $1000/month (which is less than the dole). In a small market (say, like Australia), you'd maybe sell one item per month. So your business would need to make $1000 on each item sold.
But in a big market with (say) 1000 items sold per month, you only need to make $1 per item sold.
Anyway, when I see any local wind sport retailer, I feel big respect. They are selling healthy (low volume) stuff, instead of high volume stuff like alcohol, cigarettes and lotto tickets.
The issue is that US prices are usually lower than the rest and at least in the field where I work in the prices are on average 300$ lower than Aus or EU prices. Ironically the product is made in EU.
As I work at quality dept. dealing with claims, I sometimes occur issues with Aussies or Euros purchasing our products form USA, for our product this is illegal act form dealer's side not customer's. The imagine, manufacturer begging an Aussie dealer to have some good will and help solving the issue, so the shipping costs will be lower and the customer unaware of the possible issue won't have to wait for replacement part for to long.
The issue is, that the dealer who helps out in the end or the distributor does not earn sh1t from this and cannot prevent this.
If it wasn't a question about the end customer, we would simply refuse any help on such a claim, but as we try to keep a good rep, we have to find a good solution for the customer.
I don't know how claims are solved in windsurfing world, I just tried to set an example and the difficulties a manufacturer does occur in cases when they have to deal with warranty issues when people buy overseas.
Luckily it is 2 cases or maybe 3 a year for me though :)
Check out the forum on ski.com.au "Purchasing ski gear overseas".
www.ski.com.au/xf/ and
Intermediary sites for buying from US
wikiski.com/wiki/index.php/List_of_Online_Suppliers#Intermediary_sites_for_buying_from_US
May have saved this discussion. Some good points for and against though.
Okay I know I'm not going to be popular by posting this but I needed some bits and pieces recently (harness, 2 extensions, 4 footstraps, base, vest etc). Since my nearest windsurfing store is 800km away I purchase all my gear via mail order.
I priced these from Australian retailer's websites and the cheapest I could get for the items from buying through numerous stores was $950 AUD excluding shipping. Based on previous purchases, postage for all these items would be around $40 to $50. So in effect the total cost would be $1000.00 AUD.
Curiousity got the better of me so I searched some US sites and was able to purchase like for like items from one store including express delivery for $610AUD ($640 USD). Now I'm all for trying to support my 'Local' retailers but saving $400 is just too great to ignore. Even if GST was added onto this internet purchase under $1000, the saving would still be significant so retailer's argument for GST is somewhat ineffective.
If this is a fairly common outcome across all retail purchases then I suspect retailing in Australia will (and is) suffer(ing) significantly
Loyalty can only go so far.
I think windsurfing retail in Australia is a bit of a closed shop with all trying to protect their mark up. Retail is tough and it is hard to make a profit even with 100% nark up. However windsurfing shops need to change their approach or they will lose market to online sales overseas and within Australia. I have already seen that move in South Australia with sails, why pay $1000 for a new sail when you can buy one of a different brand for $700 which some would say a better sail from a online shop. I think windsufers are more focused on quality and functionality at a reasonable price than some windsurfing shops give windsurfers credit for.
First things, not all windsurfing shops are the same. Some do a lot to encourage local sailors and to build the sport, others just set up on the beginning of a boom.
Niche Kite and SUP shops will come and go and pretty much all of them are riding the boom rather than building long term businesses. Likewise some windsurfing shops do less than others and the service levels vary. It's up to everyone to take a view on what their local shop does for them and for the sport.
The shops meanwhile should be shouting about what they're doing.
Where shops are sponsoring events, organisers should be clear on how much effort they've put in and whether they deserve credit - I've heard wildly differing stories of the amount of effort put in by retailers as part of "sponsorship".
It's up to you. Ask yourself a few questions
1 If you broke your 4m mast half an hour into an awesome day's sailing, how soon would you like to be able to get a replacement....
1 hour (local shop with stock)
1 week (Australian shop with stock and shipping)
2 weeks (Hawaiian shop with airmail)
3 weeks...
2 Do you expect any advice when you buy gear? Face to face advice that helps you work out what you need
3 Does the least capable person at the place where you sail need advice? Are you prepared to give it? Can you help them order the right stuff online? Are you prepared to help them?
4 Who taught you to sail?
5 Have you ever taken anything back either broken or not suitable?
6 Would you be happy buying a harness online? Without trying it on?
7 What actually is the price difference? Do you trust the guys at the other end? For those of you who haven't noticed, the US is in a fairly hefty recession. Will your credit card company cover you against retailer default?
8 Does your local shop organise events?
I will buy stuff from overseas if the answer to 7 outweighs all the others. Recent experience says it doesn't.
