OK , I will probably get flamed but here goes. I work for a "TINY" importer or roofracks and now bumpers etc.
In defence of importers and parts sellers, you have to remember that they have to bring in full containers of parts, some are fast moving , some are slow.
They have to finance the stock for up to maybe a year and business loan interest rates are not 3.5% but 10% plus. Some importers probably do not have accounts with British suppliers and have to pay on order which adds another 6 to 8 weeks that they have to finance the goods.
The landing costs on a container have grown expotentially in Australia . A 20 footer costs about $8K to LAND above the container cost with"user pays" fees for government inspections, PLUS the 10% GST.
From our part for example we stock D1 and D2 roof racks. our supplier Bajarack makes 2 types of 2 racks so we should stock 4. We sell very few D1 roofracks and may have some of these in stock for 6 months or more. I have convinced them to make 1 common D1-D2 rack so in future it may be not so bad.
It now costs about $600 to shift a D1/D2 roofrack to Melbourne from West Gosford , and so we have to subsidise the freight as nobody I know would pay $600 to get a roof rack from Sydney to Melbourne. We recently worked out that as part of a container it costs about $300-400 to ship that roofrack from Long Beach as well, as we can ship 3 or 4 other racks in the space they take.
So we add what on first blush looks like a large margin on top of the US retail price and I know that the only reason we sell some of the racks we sell is that it costs a minimum of $1000 to air freight these racks so we are still price competitive with the US retailers. Similarly with Bumpers.
I guess that OZ suppliers must look at UK prices and if they have any brains try to match the cost, so there is probably a good reason that the prices are higher , as I don't see them driving new Range Rovers around.
Another problem I guess is the distribution system. Retailers generally will ask for at least a 25% discount on retail for it to be worthwhile to sell and this is on top of the margin that the importer has to charge to cover costs.
AFAIK Rovacraft stopped selling direct some time ago, probably because of the hassle and expense of dealing direct with retail customers who order wrong parts etc., and the sheer manpower it takes to process small orders. You spend just as much time on a $50 part as a $500 part when selling retail, as you have to get the shipping details, raise an invoice, wrap it up, arrange a courier etc etc . Our system may not be the best but I spend about 15minutes or more on each order.
I was surprised to see just recently how many staff All 4X4 spares at Kotara had. I think there were about 8 or them!!! At 50-60K per person minimum , that is a LOT of overhead.
I hope that goes some way to explain what they are faced with, however I must admit That I buy air freightable items from UK suppliers also at times.
Regards Philip A
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