I understand its tough in retail at the moment and I really want to support local businesses and I know its a smaller market here so the economies of scale dont exist therefore things cost a little extra. Fair enough.
But dont take the piss or you wont sell a thing..

Ocean rodeo Mako 2011 $985
Upgrade to king version 30
Freight to Perth from Melb $250 (Ocean rodeos price)

Thats a lazy $1265

For last years board with a new version out in weeks.

Cant be shifting many with pricing like that.
So I went on line and bought it from Texas. yes. Texas U.S.A
for $599 and $125 to mail it here. Thats $724 landed. Here in 10 days

$541 cheaper than buying local.

That's a good price, thanks for the tip.
Does anyone know where you can buy a whole shipping container full of fake FCS fins for $2 a fin?
You could give them away at the beach in return for beer for the rest of your life, and be hammered after every session.

$90 for a set of fins is an absolute joke. Noone deserves those margins.

popcorn time....

Retail is suffering a slow painful death. Long live the internet.

Being heavily into cycle racing for most of my wife, I notice on the Aus forums that most folk shop overseas now due to painful cost of stuff here. UK/ Ireland based shops like Chain Reaction and Wiggle even offer free postage to Aus, and the goods are considerably cheaper than anywhere you'll find here. Even if you get stung for import duty, you still save a huge chunk of wonga.

Sorry, but if people tell me to "support the local economy", and buy from "local", shops I tell them to stick it up their Botswana

ok congrats but u could have bouth a north rebel 2011 that comes with a free board for the same price, or a naish that also comes with a free board and support the local shops, also how about warranty no kites bought overseas offer warranty, how about the after sales for ocean rodeo in australia??? a online shop dont have to pay higher rent, overheads, aftersales etc...i know in australia the prices are a bit more than overseas but if u spend a bit of time on the shop u can always walk with a good discount plus all the facilities that u also get, demos etc...ha dont forget over 1000 dollars u will have to pay 10% taxes on that..so resuming u didnt do a great deal and didn't support a local shop.

how many posts til this worn out thread gets locked.....


popcorn time...

I'm still staring at myusername's picture...I think I have a serious problem.


I have bough over the net and local, not too sure where i stand. But $500 cheaper, that's almost 100% dearer, no-one can support that. But when our ability to demo stock is gone, mmmm that's a problem.

However the notion of unemployment due to the internet; the sooner we get off the drip of retail consumer economies the better. It's false and unsustainable, less shopping malls means we start to recognise the need for more education, especially in the technical innovative areas or go down in history as the the white trash sheep farming, dirt digging, retail buying - foreign owned Asian nation, that had so much potential.


But good deal on ya board mate, enjoy...

stabber said...
I can't stop myself.... God help us when we are internet buyers all!

50% unemployment is a starting point.

Creating employment is a fairly weak argument generally..
Socially it can have a stabilizing effect, but economically if you can save jobs and still maintain the same value (which includes providing advice and information), you gained efficiency. The freed human resources can then be used to produce goods/services of higher value, which will ultimately increase our standard of living.

Best example would be buying an ebook on Amazon, there is no way in hell I want to walk into a bookstore again if I can read hundreds of reviews online and buy the stuff with 2 minutes delivery time, without having to pay extra for postage, stock keeping/logistics overhead etc.

Kite wise, I don't think it's black and white, there is room for both.
As a beginner you appreciate advice from a kite shop and will likely buy there.
As an advanced dude you might still want to buy bits and pieces in a shop, accessories like shorts/wetsuits, good deals on second hand/last year's gear.
If they can do kite repairs, I would be happy to pay for that as well.
Not to mention that there is a good number of non-cheapskates, otherwise some small brands would have gained considerably more market share already.

"Everything has been said already - but not yet by everyone." (Karl Valentin)

Bigwavedave said...

Going offshore for gear seems to make sense.

Got a quote from the sparky. 14 grand. Rang a little guy Bali who wired my mate's resort. He can do it for 4 grand!! So I'm gonna fly him out for the week of the rough in and them fly him back to finish. Saving 6 grand.

Bricky and tiler the same. All up I'm gonna save nearly 40k on subbies!

I am sure you are going to get a lot of people mention; 'not done to Australian standards' - ignore them!

Good For you!

Bigwavedave said...


Did you ask the Aussie shop to match the price? Or even negotiate a little?
I can walk in to a store and get a new board for $750 by haggling. And freight for a board anywhere in Oz is only $30 on Star Track Express.

Admittedly no I did'nt. My shutters went down at the mention of $250 to mail it Melbourne to Perth.

Ironically the American retailer is Bricks and Mortor

The Australian one is based online

further evidence of the almost contempt the consumer is treated with.