I am a fan of internet shopping – I buy everything I can reasonably buy from the google box. Years of putting up with disinterested, surly and friggen ignorant shop assistants have been replaced by a relaxed approach to buying virtually anything I want in peace and quiet
However, when buying a digital book of Amazon I noticed the following message appear.
And they were right – I did get charged a higher price to have a book delivered digitally to my tablet sitting on my desk in Australia. WTF? is that all about – the digital size of the book doesn’t change, it is not a different edition and it doesn’t come with any gee whizzery that is not included in the US edition. Apparently, it is expensive to ship electrons across the Pacific.
I did a bit of research and the best explanation (read bullshit) I got from Amazon was that I was paying for the 3G roaming service. Which is bollocks since my tablet is WiFi device at present. This excuse might hold some water in the US on their 3G Kindles, which by the way they advertise as 3G free. So I did a bit more digging and the only other explanation I can come up with is that even in electronic form books are more expensive locally because of the demands of publishers.
So even as the world changes local publishers are still being greedy bastards and trying to screw consumers.
Its the same with digital music. Why are songs on Itunes Australia more expensive than Itunes USA?
Joe
This might help
http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/09/02/international-kindle-avoid-extra-fee-save/
Nice find…………..
This is par for the course for digital software downloads as well. Services like Steam, Origin & Ubisoft, digital games stores, always charge significantly more for Australian sales, even with our higher Aussie dollar than U. We often see 30-50% higher just because your IP address is Australian. Many people use US proxy IP’s or get US friends to purchase and then gift things to get US prices.
One solution might be a VPN such as those used to gain access to Hulu and Netfilx