Down Here, at the bottom of the World :a price survey for Ilford Paper..

[Smudger]

Hello All ; I would welcome replies from APUG members in Nth America,Canada,U.K,Australia,and anyone else who would care to reply.
I would like to know your local suppliers price for;,and to keep this simple;a 100 sheet box of Ilford MG Fibre,8x10in ,Glossy VC,paper.
Excluding any special discounts,or shipping charges, what would you expect to pay for this quantity?
Reason for asking?
It has been my impression that ,in some markets,the consumer may be getting less than an optimum deal.
No need for a currency conversion: I will convert the prices to NZ$-
Regards.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

That product is about 40 to 45 GBP over here. However there may be other considerations, like New Zealand being a long way away, and a smaller market compared to Europe or North America, that have some effect on prices.

 

[Seabird]

Smudger, as one of Scottish extraction who was born and grew up in Dunedin, I appreciate your concern.

Here in Australia, the product you nominated seems to be about AUD$150.00

Cheers from Oz.

Carey Bird

 

[srs5694]

You can check the Web sites for Freestyle, B&H, or Dead Link Removed for US pricing. Local brick-and-mortar stores are likely to have it for a few dollars more. Freestyle definitely ships overseas, if you find their product line or prices appealing, but of course you should verify shipping prices first! I'm not sure if B&H or Adorama will ship internationally.

 

[pentaxuser]

Checked on 7 sites in the U.K and agree with the other UK contributor. It varied between £42 and £55 with most in the £42 to £50 range

pentaxuser

 

[Smudger]

Just as I expected..

Thanks for your replies folks :
Results,priced in US dollars,at todays rates :

Freestyle :$84.99
United Kingdom : $76.90 to 91.55
Australia : $129.72
New Zealand :$141.57
I think I'll go and have a little lie down..

 

[Bob-D659]

Now I don't know how many containers of product Ilford ships to North America every year, but I'd guess the cost of shipping a full container to the US from the UK is a lot less than shipping 1/10th of the quantity of the same product halfway around the world.

 

[hywel]

It can't work quite like that though. Here in Malaysia it's RM305, USD 90. And I guarantee you that Malaysia is a smaller market than either Oz or NZ. Trouble is next week I'm moving to Perth and I've already seen the prices I am going to have to pay there and I'm not happy.

Hywel

 

[John McCallum]

Smudger, I've just recently restocked my paper and looked into suppliers fairly extensively. My experiences fwiw.
I asked the largest Auck supplier what they could do for me. They offered a long lead time and retail prices. The situation in NZ is not great - Ilford distributor has to buy from their opposition in Australia.
B&H prices were a bit high and Adorama did not even answer several emails (I just don't understand that!)
Freestyle are the best supplier I've found on the west coast of the US. They delivered all promptly and well packaged. Responded to a minor problem quickly and cared. I've ordered several thousand dollars worth from them so far and not thinking about looking any further.

 

[Marcelosponja]

Hello. Here in Madrid 66 euros, 97.28 dollars aprox.

 

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

I've used Freestyle with good results. It's been faster to get a package from Freestyle in California than to get a package from Vanbar in Melbourne, sometimes...shipping is high, but if you buy a lot it doesn't hurt so much.
We definitely pay a premium for our geography.

 

[pentaxuser]

Can shipping and distance really account for nearly $70 a box? I don't think so. If this were to be case then you'd expect Freestyle to have to charge a mark-up in the U.S. for the shipping from the U.K. and then a further mark-up to transport to NZ which added together should start to come close to the price charged in NZ by the local NZ supplier.

Normally each market charges what it believes the market will bear. So for a while we had "rip-off" Britain in the car market until enterprising people started to order left hand drives from Belgium and Germany and did the paperwork to get the car into the UK. That and the EU single market largely put paid to the rip-off but left to the local suppliers, in this case the car manufacturers and dealers themselves nothing would have happened.

The problem, I thnk is the market size and lack of competition preventing a big enough incentive to spawn a "grey market" to take away the business from the local suppliers.

If the market is fixed and small and the local suppliers don't believe they have competition and cannot increase the market by price reductions but believe that the customer base is fixed and the quantities sold will remain the same, due to these quantities being largely unresponsive to price then what you get is what you seem to have got in NZ.

It's only in the manufacturer's interest to try and exert pressure on suppliers if it believes that the suppliers have got it seriously wrong and that sales to suppliers could be increased considerably if they would drop their prices. Even then a drop in prices from local supplirs to customers might benefit Ilford sales to NZ suppliers but unless that drop in price increased local suppliers' profits then they have no incentive to do anything.


An analogy is that U.K. premier league football clubs have been and will continue to increase their seat prices for as long as they are purchased at their ever increasing prices. Only when they increase prices to the point of seriously reducing gate revenue and fan base will they know they have reached the limit and will then re-consider their position.

Sudden loss of revenue seriously concentrates minds but in the meantime leaves the customer who votes with his feet without the benefit of his beloved hobby, be it a pack of Ilford paper or a seat at Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Utd etc.

No wonder they call economics the dismal science. It's usually dismal for those on the receiving end of an imperfect( in the economist's sense of the word) market.

pentaxuser

 

[manfromh]

My local store's website doesnt say if its fiber or rc, but its called MGIV 1M. If thats the one you mean, its about 69 dollars. I realy dont know if its fiber or RC.

 

[Stew]

$ 107 Canadian

 

[Claire Senft]

I also use Freestyle. How is it that you and the sheep are able to walk upsidedown? Doesn't the blood rush to your head?

 

[Michael Finder]

Check your groundglass image - Enzed and Oz are actually on top!