Price USA News

In combination with shipporter my US partners are now able to sea freight to Australia. This is much more cost effective for orders over 110 lbs (50 kg). My FAQ pages has more details about this new option, but these are some important points to keep in mind if you are thinking of using sea freight.

• It is slow. Expect to wait 6 to 8 weeks at least.
• It is not cost effective for smaller orders. Sea freight is not a cheap substitute for UPS or USPS shipping. It really is only worthwhile for shipping items with an actual or volumetric weight greater than 100 lbs.
• The size limit is 400cm x 210cm x 210cm. This is pretty big!
• Sea freight is more complex than air shipping. Because of this it is not possible to give 100% accurate quotes in advance, but I have tried to be conservative in estimating the likely costs on my shipping cost calculator. I expect that the major of orders will cost less than what my shipping cost calculator estimates based on the weight, but it is worth keeping in mind that it might be more.
• Freight is shipped out of California. Because of this there may be Californian sales tax charged on the order by the original store. This will depend if the store has a physical presence in California or not.

Despite these caveats sea freight is a great option for shipping really large items.

Some good news. My US partners have been able to workout a legal way of shipping perfume and aftershave from the USA to Australia. Even better news is it the shipping will be as cheap as first class mail. The only downside is there is no tracking on the shipping and hence you are limited to orders under 2 kg and $250 in value, but given how cheap perfume is in the USA this should not be too much of an problem

Carolina

Update. USPS has changed their regulations once again and we can no longer ship perfume

I have recently changed my iPhone partner because my previous partner became seriously ill. My new partner is charging less to get the iPhones ($20 rather than $40 extra). He also pays less USA state sales tax so the price of the iPhones is now $US449.80 for the 8GB model and US$557.52 for the 16GB model. With the Australian dollar up at the moment they now work out at around A$566 and A$692 to get here with my fees and express shipping included.

Carolina

The USA recession must be really starting to bite as all the projector rebates have been extended through to the end of March. In addition, Visual Apex is now offering some pretty substantial addition instant rebates ($75 to $200) and free shipping on their projectors.

The standout bargain at the moment is the Optoma HD70 720p DLP projector at US$949.00 with free USA shipping and a $200 mail-in rebate. This brings the final price including shipping to Australia and our fees to around $A950.00. This is well under the $1000 customs limit so you won’t need to pay GST or duty on the projector either.

Carolina

Amazon is running out the previous model Apple MacBooks and MacBook Pros. With the extra rebates (US$75 on the MacBook and US$150 on the MacBook Pros these are a great bargain at only A$1,849.00 for the 15″ MacBook Pro and A$1,112.00 for the White 13″ MacBook. This price includes shipping and our fees. The quickbuy links are below.

• Apple 15″ MacBook Pro 2.2Ghz 2GB RAM 120GB HD ~A$1849.00
• Apple 13″ White MacBook 2.0Ghz 1GB RAM 80GB HD ~A$1112.00

Carolina

A great bargain at the moment is the Sanyo Z2000 1080p projector. It can be bought from VisualApex for US$2195 and comes with a US$600 mail-in rebate. After taking into account shipping and our fees this projector works out at only a little over AUS$2000. This is a great price considering the Australian RRP on this projector is $3999! I have added the quick buy link for the Z2000 below.

Sanyo Z2000 1080p Projector

I have added the new 16GB iPhone to our quick buys. These cost my partner US$581.91 to acquire as the price includes US state sales tax ($42.91) and an extra fee he has to pay (US$40) to get them (they are a real pain to buy).

This means that at the current exchange rate the 16GB iPhones are around under A$720.00 including shipping and all our fees.Both the 16GB and 8GB iPhones are brand new and come straight from Apple and so they have the 1.1.3 firmware on them. Given that this has just been software hacked (no need for a SIM unlock card) I expect that Apple will be releasing a new firmware pretty soon – if you are thinking of ordering a iPhone then now might be a good time

Edit. Apple has just released an update to 1.1.4 via iTunes. At this stage I have no information if these are on the new iPhones but it is a pretty good guess that if it isn’t it won’t be long till it is.

A few people have shown interest in ordering the Apple from the USA. Apple appears to be subsidizing the USA models (40GB and 160GB) so they are significantly cheaper to order from the USA than here in Australia. At the current exchange rate you can order the 40GB model from the USA for A$320 (including shipping) compared with A$449 from Apple Australia. The 160GB model is A$412 from the USA compared with A$579 from Apple Australia.The Quick buy links for these two models are:

• Apple TV 160GB
• Apple TV 40GB

Welcome to the Price USA news pages. Price USA has been running now for a couple of months so I thought I would add a blog where I can keep you informed of any changes, as well as let you know about various sales, bargains and sites that I think will be of interest. If you see any great deals or sites around then I would love to hear from you.

Carolina