High price of buying Australian

REGULATORS are starting to ask the same question Australian consumers have been asking for years: Why do we pay so much for products that are far cheaper overseas?

Limited distribution rights for products has long been a basic, if somewhat unspoken, tenet of the Australian fashion industry.

 It has led to us routinely paying twice the price for a pair of international designer jeans, a piece of software delivered on the net or an international cruise than if we lived in the US.

It has also contributed to a growing groundswell of ill-feeling towards the retail industry as consumers begin to wake up to the fact that we've been ripped off for years.

It's fair to say Australian distributors responsible for locking up these inflated prices were caught by surprise by the flood of money to overseas sites that first offered us a way around inflated price differences.

They complained bitterly and blamed the lack of GST on goods under $1000 bought from overseas, a move that didn't win much sympathy.

Now comes news the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is starting to look at the emerging practice of Australian distributors signing deals with international brands to block Australians from buying their products more cheaply at overseas sites to ensure we keep paying high prices.

The ACCC has indicated it is investigating ``impediments to emerging competition involving online traders'' as a matter of priority.

A spokesman for the organisation has been reported as saying "behaviour employed to underwrite regional pricing strategies can in some circumstances raise concerns under the competition provisions''.

This practice, an attempt to stop us buying designer jeans at Amazon-operated stores such as ShopBop for half the price they are available in Australia, will only underwrite the distrust consumers feel towards Australian retailers.

It doesn't have to be this way. Although retail is certainly in the doldrums, some corporations have learnt how to win over our wallets.

In his opening address to the Senate inquiry into milk prices, Coles chief executive Ian McLeod said he had been surprised by the lack of regard Australians had for major grocery retailers, something the company had been working hard to turn around.

Cheap milk may have caused an uproar at the farm gate but there haven't been too many complaints from those paying the grocery bills.

The Coles campaign is driving more people into their stores despite the diminishing shelf space given over to brands. Meanwhile, we're staying away from David Jones and Myer while Mastercard statistics show one of the fastest growth sectors for spending is at bricks-and-mortar stores overseas.

Middle-aged travellers shopping at US department stores such as Nordstrom are giving the plastic a good old workout over there.

It's not hard to work out what's going on. People are travelling overseas or they're online and finding out the cost of things. The bad news for the industry will only continue unless major retailers say no to artificially high prices for international brands.