I have never shipped anything international, but that seems ex-pen-sive.
This was unexpected, an official/legit way to get us items to australia, not sure i’ll use it though
There are a few other better services available. Which I can’t remember right now. This comment is pointless.
Amazon can express ship (Im talking less than 4 days) to my door in Australia, Size 11 sneakers for $43. I did this just this week gone by although my postage was free but thats another story but suffice to say Amazon sure know how to sell online and take responsibility for errors. Illumn and RMM have shipped to my door for less than that too.
Im aware the operator is trying to make a profit, but its going to be hard I would think with those prices.
It is run by Australia Post so is bound to be expensive, especially for those of us who have become accustomed to free subsided shipping from Asia.
Aus Post is also one of the reasons buying internationally is risky - the cost of returning a faulty item basically just means you usually have to write it off rather than trying to send it back for a refund/repair.
I can see this service being possibly useful where you really must have an item from a vendor who simply won't ship here, but you'd have to factor the high delivery cost into the purchasing decision.
Thanks for the link Hank.
Thanks Hank
Our exchange rate has dropped from ~$1.10 to ~86c recently so buying from the USA is not attractive anymore 
.
So, ah, what do you recommend US folks buy from Australia, while the exchange rate is uneven?
Hmmm …. SubaXTreme makes great skid plates (got one already) and brush bumpers …
i thought we only exported minerals, scientific research and live animals these days.
Minerals and live animals are where the big money is. However there is trade in Capital Equipment that goes on. When the exchange rate is historically high, it encourages the importation, when the rate collapses, the previously imported equipment sometimes gets exported. For example Australia has no real light aircraft industry, so light airplanes (Cessna’s and the like) get bought in the USA and shipped/flown to Australia when the exchange rate is favorable. When the exchange rate shifts substantially in the other direction, these same aircraft start getting exported. I have a friend who bought a used Beechcraft Bonzaza (about $350K) a few years ago when the exchange rate was very favorable. It is for sale now, and most likely will be sold back to someone in the USA. Since such transactions are invariably priced in US Dollars the owner will have gotten the use of the airplane for several years essentially for free!
I used to deal extensively in Australian Sheepskin products. Never a huge export compared to minerals, but the business died as the Australian dollar rose about 40% against the US dollar in the early part of the last decade, making the products prohibitive expensive in the USA.
I guess that was really just my cynical Aussie humour coming through rather than a factually comprehensive statement.
Like many western countries, we are suffering from a decline in our manufacturing sector as cheap imports from Asia kill off many of our industries. It flows through to cause social issues and rising unemployment, regardless of how the politicians keep adjusting criteria to make the statistics tell us otherwise.
I speak to quite a few people here who seem to understand that we can't rely on simply opening more cafes for people to sip lattes in the sun, but government and big business only see the costs and the profit margins. Infrastructiure and a solid manufacturing base take second place as we chase only the dollar in this "global economic market". Unfortunately "Team Australia" is not competing on a "level playing field" no matter what the spin doctors might tell us. Mantras like "Work smarter, not harder" can only placate the masses for a limited time.
The suits are happy, but those of us used to actually working for a living are slowly sinking towards poverty and third world wages.
Don't even get me started on the ecological calamities awaiting us as we start letting formerly productive agricultural land drift back to pre-white settlement bushland because rising water costs and cheap food imports have made many farming ventures unsustainable.
Sorry Hank for taking your thread OT - not feeling very optimistic about any of this.
Its a bit hard to blame government, business moves offshore because we wont work for peanuts, but we happily buy goods made by people who do. Tariffs as a means of offsetting low cost imports are long gone, its part of the deal with our exports, cant have one without the other. Slowly as time goes on, the third world will no longer be an economically attractive place to run a business and it will move back. You and I will be long dead by then, but its inevitable as wages climb in developing countries. Just as they did here over the last 200 years.
What car do you drive?
Do you buy local, from small business or Woolies for example?
We as consumers are to blame mostly, but you know, never blame yourself when you have a scapegoat. The same people who make up the quiet statistics, look in their homes and yards (while they have them of course), youll see imported cheap tap fittings in fancy magazine inspired flat packed bathrooms made of imported cheapness, cheap SS BBQs in courtyards or outdoor kitchens made with cheap imported stone that looks the part and a big screen outdoor TV, a garage with imported goodies inside and foreign tools to play about with them. All possible, due to cheap imports. Seriously, cant blame government.
This is going in lots of interesting directions.