Pete Keillor wrote:

On Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:46:09 -0400, "Joe AutoDrill"
wrote:

I'd expect that even with shipping from the US, your prices will be
cheaper
than anything that can be sourced locally. If the Australian purchaser
keeps the value below AU$1000 and the item is shipped by post, the
item is free of import duties and goods and services tax which equates
to about a 25% discount over what local suppliers can provide goods
for. Plus the US - AUS Free Trade Agreement means that items made
in the USA are free of import duties. The low value of the US$ has also
made buying goods from the USA dirt cheap - two years ago we paid
US 80 cents to buy one Australian dollar, now its more like US$1.05
to AU$1.

That is an excellent point...

Most of my orders from these folks are for repair parts though and the
equipment is on a production line so the time spent waiting for the part to
arrive costs them money.

Most choose the fastest UPS or DHL service available for a small $15-40 part
and pay at least $50 in shipping. ...Sometimes triple that amount.

I've heard worse. My boss told the cautionary tale of the time the
main gear pump crashed on his polyethylene pilot plant. This was on a
Friday, and he told the lead tech to have it running by Monday. Came
back on Monday and it was running. Turns out the tech had located a
replacement (these are very large and expensive gear pumps, primary
devo drivers in this service) and had it flown into the local airport
by Flying Tigers. Don't remember the freight, but it was in the
thousands.

The moral: be careful of what you wish for or ask a tech to do if you
don't specify any constraints.


Would the downtime have been cheaper, and still let them meet
shipping schedules? If so, he should have set a limit.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.