International Price Comparisons

I'm interested in comparing the prices you can get for certain components, compared to the prices I can get here in Perth AUSTRALIA. It just might be that IMPORTING certain items could be well worth it. I'll list a few things here from my local PC hardware shop.

DVD 16x tray load - Pioneer $109.00-AUD
AMD XP 2000 + Retail with Heat-sink & Fan $399.00-AUD
Intel Pentium 4 2000 boxed with fan $599.00-AUD
Asus V8460U 128MB TI 4600 Geforce4 Ultra $899.00-AUD
Leadtek 64MB Geforce4 MX 440 with TV out, DDR $229.00-AUD
80GB Maxtor Viper 7200rpm ATA133 $309.00-AUD
EPox 8K3A+ Mainboard KT333 DDR RAM , AMD CPUs,
on-board sound, RAID AMD Socket A. $249.00-AUD


How do these prices compare with what you can get from your local hardware shop or online dealer?? Help appreciated.

Buying hardware on the internet means there is a possibility that the hardware will not work or it might be a wrong item. If you happened to have a defective motherboard(think about how many wires are in a mobo), oversea shipping will take you... I don't know... another 2 or 3 weeks before you get another one? In addition, warrenties usually require you to ship it back to the US if you buy import hardwares. making an international tech support call is quite expensive too. For these reasons, I don't recommand imports.

Yeah, there is a risk. Thats why I'm wanting to know if it's really worth it. And for interests sake. Even when the Australian dollar gains ground against the US greenback NOTHING happens to PC component prices in Australia. Also I'm interested to know if we In Australia pay comparatively more for our PC related items. I know this is the case with PC games which retail here for around $100-AUD. Whereas peope in America seem to complain if prices hit $40.00 US.

You must also factor in the taxes. It could be that the price of an item is the same, however, shipping and taxes can be substantially different - especially when considering import duties and VAT which a US purchaser does not pay on US produced items.