Thread: WILDLY varying locker prices

[QUOTE=cookiesa;1345379]So your argument is now you could stand in ARB's Kilsyth factory and watch the parts being made... but then they would import cheap parts from China to put in to the boxes? Really? Your serious?

You can try and distort what I actually said as much as you like,if you can't see past your own narrow minded outlook,then that isn't my problem.But I do seriously suggest that you might re read what I actually said and what and where I was referring to!!!!!

Originally Posted by cookiesa

So your argument is now you could stand in ARB's Kilsyth factory and watch the parts being made... but then they would import cheap parts from China to put in to the boxes? Really? Your serious?

Anyway at the end of the day we compare our prices to overseas, in particular the US and Europe. Unless we as workers accept the comprimises they do, (check out healthcare in the US) wages, public holidays etc we will find it hard to be competitive. Not impossible as others have stated. At the end of the day ARB manufacture in Australia, have a large stockist network to support you and genuinely care about trying to achieve customer satisfaction. No one pretends there perfect but we should all be proud of what they have achieved. A one man operation in the 70's to a company that exports to most regions on Earth, they generally do it very well and with great products.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, they make them here, correct, they send them to the US and you can purchase them from the US, with a largeish airfreight bill to bring them BACK to aus, far cheaper than you can purchase them here, sense make not so much

Sorry to bring this thread back to lockers and pricing , but if anyone is interested, MR Automotive now has Maxidrive lockers to suit Salisbury rear ends back in stock. I don't know where they're made (didn't ask) and I think they are the only source, but they are just under $2,500 fitted. That includes axles and drive flanges.

I'm pretty sure they only accept Australian dollars.

I havnt visited this thread for a while. Awesome, on two accounts. I need lockers, and the economic debate is priceless.

My 2C. I own a prototype engineering business, do design, manufacture "one offs", and short productions runs etc. For most "consumer products", I couldnt get a designer, or engineer to "look at it " for the cost it sells for here in Australia. The cost of living here is phenomenall high right now! (See Ricks thread on our capitalist model which he didnt post)

The simple fact is, we are moving rapidly towards a global economy. As a consumer, why would you buy a part from Bunnings, when the same part at a store down the road is half the price? Thats the way the global economy works. Land Rover parts are available from the UK cheap because its a niche industry. Those parts from the US are the result of innovation, and protection by patent etc. The reason why they are expensive to buy in Australia, is principlayy, your wages. Its not freight, it is (too some extent, rent, but it is mainly your wages, and the wages of the freight companies etc.

There are simple supply and demand pressures on costs to equalise globally. If you want to sell something available elsewhere in the world, then you need to compete. We cant compete with China and India due to the cost of wages, and other inputs. We should have downward pressure on wages, and increased pressure on productivity, but we dont, because it is being shielded by the resource sector. Evidence of this.....go and look at wages in the uk now, and the us....their bubbleshas burst, and all costs are shrinking rapidly ars they seek to compete. The reason the resource sector is going bananas is we have a near virtual monopoly...by luck, we have the right rocks.

In manufacturing, we dont have a monoloply, and that is why manufacturing will die a slow death on this country (assuming now massive reduction on input costs, principally wages). Our only future contribution in this sector, as pointed out earlier by Rick I think, is the high end design, hi tech simulation side. Our model here (my company) is to design and build prototypes, then provide that complete tech data pack to a customer, who ships it off to China, India, or elsewhere for manufacture.

We are able to do this because of education. This advantage wont last long...and is shrinking already...education in China and India is fast catching up.

Its not all doom and gloom, because the new educated masses of China and India will demand compensation....they will put large upwards pressure on their wages...or else they will leave and go to a country which does pay them.....one day.....in theory, the supply and demand graph equlises, and we have a common ish wage.....

So Terry, hate to disagree with your utopian view....but the only reason we still live like we do is resources...niche industries with low competition from overseas....and a government (both sides) who continues to manipulate the economy trying to prevent the bubble from bursting....It will burst, its just a matter of when, and on whose watch. The longer the bubble grows, the bigger the splash.