What's the deal with APR oceania pricing? 100% increase over US pricing??

[Beer Baron]

Does anyone else wonder what is going on with local aus pricing on APR gear?

I'm thinking about doing some mods to the scirocco R.

I'm still tossing up what to do but a basic package would be:

stage II ECU tune
TBE
high pressure fuel pump
carbonio (or other) intake
and possibly upgraded intercooler.

I had heard some good reports about the APR product so started looking into their stuff.

I was doing some research and came to both the aus APR site and the US (north america - NA) site.

NA pricing for TBE? $1484 USD. in aus it's an eye watering $2695 AUD ($2814 if we convert to USD).
NA pricing for ECU tune? $499 USD. in aus we pay a lovely $1350 ($1411)

given that a tune requires no postage and no actual components (just an upload of software) why is it triple the price? Sure they no doubt do a 'other market' or aus specific tune that varies from the NA tune (not 100% sure if they do) but don't think that justifies a 200% increase!

it's somewhat better with the fuel pump. NA price is $934 USD in aus it's $1450 ($1515 USD), still would't think a small part requires a 50% markup for our market.

the intake is pretty rude though. carbonio NA price is $269 + $179 for the maf pipe (total $448 USD). in aus it's $525 + $295 for the maf pipe (total $820 or $857 USD). again aus price is approx double the US price.

yes, I know all the reasons prices can be different here:

GST (though US has sales tax too)
import duty does not apply (FTA with US)
freight cost. sure that's a factor
local distributorship costs (rent, staff etc) - yep that's a cost too.

but don't forget I'm quoting US RETAIL. the local distributor would not be paying retail so their cost price should be lower than the US prices I quoted.

so what the hell is going on?

this kind of thing was common 10 years ago. but with the advent of the internet and the global economy I didn't think companies still did this kind of stuff.

Charging triple for a piece of software (tune) that has no added freight/delivery costs is just rude.

I was thinking about going TBE, pump, tune and intake. in AUD that comes to $6315 (or $6601 USD) the NA price is $3365.

There's no way in good conscience I can pay double the price for that stuff. for something that costs $3365 in the US I would certainly expect to pay $3800 or even $4,000.... not $6601 USD...

I've no doubt they have a good product but I can't for the life of me justify their pricing.

I would love to give them my business as they seem to be doing some great stuff but I don't want to be taken for a ride doing it.

and before everyone jumps on me I've been on the other side myself. importing and exporting goods from a number of countries and I have a good understanding of economies of scale etc but nothing can explain triple the price on a tune...

Unless they do something drastic to their pricing I doubt I'll be buying any of their gear. It's a shame. most companies operating internationally these days understand the need to apply some kind of standardisation to their pricing.

[Bflat]

inb4flaming

[team_v]

search, this has been covered thousands of time.

Smaller customer base, higher overheads, local support and a lot of the products (i.e. tiguan and Golf R were developed here as we got them before the US market did).

Also, if you don't want to pay for it then there are cheaper alternatives (viezu, customcode, dubbadiction)

[h100vw]

Every month without fail.............................................. .................................................. ..............................................

Sorry mate, I am locking your thread, it comes up often enough to find.

PS I can do a tune cheaper as can every other tuner in Australia. There's more than APR in this game.

Gavin