LAB12s in Australia

[broughd]

HI!

I would like to get some LAB12 drivers in Australia. The Eminence distributer here wants AU$470 each!!! (about US$420) which is a lot more than the US$150 at USSpeaker.com.

http://www.usspeaker.com/lab12-1.htm

Does anyone know a good place to get these in AU or have experience importing into AU from overseas?

I'm sure a few of you out there have build Labhorns

cheers, DB

 

[smithy666]

The reason they want so much is they weigh 10kg each, and then add GST. Shipping by air would be A$150+, by sea A$90+, so their $470 probably is $50-100 more than it should be, but it's not too far off. You need to get a bunch of people together to buy 10+ to bring the shipping cost down. Best you could do would be around A$300 landed if you wanted them by air, or $250 by sea

 

[broughd]

The reason they want so much is they weigh 10kg each, and then add GST. Shipping by air would be A$150+, by sea A$90+, so their $470 probably is $50-100 more than it should be, but it's not too far off. You need to get a bunch of people together to buy 10+ to bring the shipping cost down. Best you could do would be around A$300 landed if you wanted them by air, or $250 by sea

Thanks for the reply!

$250 - $300 is a lot better than $470, especially when buying 4! I think I would be happy to pay that.

I didn't realise they weigh that much though...

I have heard that when buying more than about $2000-3000 there is a risk of customs applying import duty. I don't now how much that is though.

Do you think shipping would be less if buying a whole bunch? May be able to get a better unit price too.

I don't suppose you know of any suppliers who will ship to AUS?


cheers, DB

 

[DaveCan]

Give partsexpress.com a look.. They might have a better deal and they have the newest Gen II Lab 12's Dave

 

[cowanaudio]

G'day Dave

The first generation of LAB12 drivers were never available for sale, they were a prototype only. All LAB12 drivers that have been sold are Gen II.

Cheers

William Cowan

 

[DaveCan]

Thanks William I didn't realize that... Looks like a lot of woofer for the money though especially in the Lab enclosure, hope you can get a good deal DB... Dave

 

[smithy666]

If you import over A$1000 of goods you will be subject to GST (10%) + duty (if it applies). If the drivers are made in the US there won't be any duty payable (Aus-US free trade agreement), other wise duty will be charged at 5%.
If they send them through the mail and the value is >$1000 (including the postage - it's the total, not just the driver cost), then you will have to get them "cleared", which means filling out customs docs. This adds another $65 odd if you do it yourself or $150+ if you get a customs broker to do it.
If you bring in 4 you more than likely will have to pay GST, as the total cost inc shipping will be >A$1000
The best bet freight wise is to get the supplier to give you a quote - sometimes they have good rates with UPS or Fedex (better than you could get yourself), and they will automatically do the clearance for you ($65 odd charge)
I'd ask both partsexpress and usspeaker for freight quotes & see how you go.

 

[broughd]

If you import over A$1000 of goods you will be subject to GST (10%) + duty (if it applies). If the drivers are made in the US there won't be any duty payable (Aus-US free trade agreement), other wise duty will be charged at 5%.
If they send them through the mail and the value is >$1000 (including the postage - it's the total, not just the driver cost), then you will have to get them "cleared", which means filling out customs docs. This adds another $65 odd if you do it yourself or $150+ if you get a customs broker to do it.
If you bring in 4 you more than likely will have to pay GST, as the total cost inc shipping will be >A$1000
The best bet freight wise is to get the supplier to give you a quote - sometimes they have good rates with UPS or Fedex (better than you could get yourself), and they will automatically do the clearance for you ($65 odd charge)
I'd ask both partsexpress and usspeaker for freight quotes & see how you go.

Thanks for the info, very helpful !!! You have obviously have experience. I had a quick look at the Australian Customs site, and it seems like the best approach is to keep the value under $1000 and avoid all the fees/taxes and paperwork.

I might just try to import 2, and if it works out ok, I'll get another 2...


USSpeaker said that they can only supply Eminence drivers if the dealer in my country is unable to supply them. I believe that in Australia this would be in breach of the Trade Practices Act (which obviously does not apply to USSpeaker), I don't know about the situation in the US. Perhaps these types of laws are not intended to cover international jurisdictions...



cheers, DB

 

[broughd]

The reason they want so much is they weigh 10kg each, and then add GST. Shipping by air would be A$150+, by sea A$90+, so their $470 probably is $50-100 more than it should be, but it's not too far off. You need to get a bunch of people together to buy 10+ to bring the shipping cost down. Best you could do would be around A$300 landed if you wanted them by air, or $250 by sea

Hi!

You said $90 each by sea, that is what we pay, but if the distributer is getting a container or half container load of parts I would expect the cost to be a fair bit less. Given that they would also pay less than the US$145 (~AU$167) that USSpeaker charges retail, perhaps (just guessing) US$125, it looks like they are just taking advantage of the fact that there is such a limited range of good drivers available in AUS. I would be surprised if the distributer is paying much more than AU$170 landed. So if they were charging $340 retail ok - reasonable markup, but $470 ???


cheers, DB

 

[Bikeman]

Hi DB,

I wouldn't get your hopes up with parts express. I was looking to get a couple of sub drivers from them and asked about shipping options. I was told the only way they ship is via UPS, and the charges were SCARY...

If they would just post the things, it'd be worth doing. Still not cheap, but not bad compared to what is in Aus. I don't need to have them here in 3 days via courier, but it seems the only option here.

Cheers,

Mark

 

[Brett]

If you import over A$1000 of goods you will be subject to GST (10%) + duty (if it applies). If the drivers are made in the US there won't be any duty payable (Aus-US free trade agreement), other wise duty will be charged at 5%.
If they send them through the mail and the value is >$1000 (including the postage - it's the total, not just the driver cost), then you will have to get them "cleared", which means filling out customs docs. This adds another $65 odd if you do it yourself or $150+ if you get a customs broker to do it.
If you bring in 4 you more than likely will have to pay GST, as the total cost inc shipping will be >A$1000
The best bet freight wise is to get the supplier to give you a quote - sometimes they have good rates with UPS or Fedex (better than you could get yourself), and they will automatically do the clearance for you ($65 odd charge)
I'd ask both partsexpress and usspeaker for freight quotes & see how you go.

All of the above applies if sent as one shipment via Fedex/UPS. Send them USPS as 4 items and they will clear individually as 4 individual items and be subject to no CST or duty. I am very experienced at importing from the US and Japan.

I have 4 LAB12 drivers of a total of 8 that I brought in this way. Came surface too and arrived over a period of about 4 weeks even though they were sent within a week. USPS to Australia are excellent.

 

[smithy666]

Hi!

You said $90 each by sea, that is what we pay, but if the distributer is getting a container or half container load of parts I would expect the cost to be a fair bit less. Given that they would also pay less than the US$145 (~AU$167) that USSpeaker charges retail, perhaps (just guessing) US$125, it looks like they are just taking advantage of the fact that there is such a limited range of good drivers available in AUS. I would be surprised if the distributer is paying much more than AU$170 landed. So if they were charging $340 retail ok - reasonable markup, but $470 ???


cheers, DB

Correct, but I very much doubt the Aust disributor is bringing in a container load at a time. In my experience, most Aust distributors of products carry little or no stock, so will order in the driver for you. Probably why the price is $470 - they probably airfreight the drivers in when you order them. Another issue to consider is warranty - if something goes wrong with the driver, warranty claims are going to be a big problem (shipping back to the US & vice versa), whereas if you buy them from the Aust agent it will be more straightforward. Probably not worth worrying about.

All of the above applies if sent as one shipment via Fedex/UPS. Send them USPS as 4 items and they will clear individually as 4 individual items and be subject to no CST or duty. I am very experienced at importing from the US and Japan.

I have 4 LAB12 drivers of a total of 8 that I brought in this way. Came surface too and arrived over a period of about 4 weeks even though they were sent within a week. USPS to Australia are excellent.

I airfreight 500+kgs per month of goods for my business from the US, Canada, Finland and Sweden. If you are willing to wait 6-8 weeks, then seafreight is the way to go cost wise. I haven't had the same positive experience with USPS - US$700 worth of components went missing in transit (left the US, never made it here) and it took 5 months for them to pay out the insurance claim. At 10kg per driver I wouldn't ship them anyway but by sea.

 

[Brett]

Smithy, as I can't email you to ask, do you have any advice on how to economically ship (surface is OK, no hurry) a pair of 40kg 90x50x40cm speakers from the US.. Any suggestions for an agent or service as I've never done this before. Store will ship to an agent in the US. I'm not a business.

 

[smithy666]

Brett
Quite a tricky one. To airfreight through an agent or DHL (who I use) would cost you about A$760 for 80kg (exc GST/duty) - the freight charge alone is about A$330, but it's all the other charges like origin fees, clearance, airline terminal etc etc that gets it up to $760. Sending by seafreight through an agent will reduce the freight charge to probably $80, but you will still get hit with hundreds of dollars of ancillary charges. For example, I import about 800-1000kg of goods via seafreight from Finland and the ancillary charges are about $500 (the freight charge is about $300) - these ancillary charges change little with weight, so wouldn't matter if it was 100kg or 1000kg.
For the size of what you want to ship, I would try to find someone I knew in the US to take delivery and then for them to ship it through the postal service by sea freight. Would be the cheapest way. If you still want to get some pricing from an agent, let me know and I can give you a contact.

 

[Brett]

I'd appreciate the contact.

The USPS surface limit is 20kg so that's not an option even if I did know someone in the US who could do it for me.

Even with the DHL price of $760 it might be OK. I can get them for a decent price in the US, and factoring clearance fees (assume DHL are similar to UPS/Fedex) + GST + duty it might work out OK.

 

[smithy666]

Try Shaffe at Logicons 1800 128 700 to see if he can help you out.

 

[Brett]

Thank you muchly. Will do as soon as Xmas madness subsides.

 

[broughd]

All of the above applies if sent as one shipment via Fedex/UPS. Send them USPS as 4 items and they will clear individually as 4 individual items and be subject to no CST or duty. I am very experienced at importing from the US and Japan.

I have 4 LAB12 drivers of a total of 8 that I brought in this way. Came surface too and arrived over a period of about 4 weeks even though they were sent within a week. USPS to Australia are excellent.

Hi! I appreciate your comments.

Had a look on the customs site and about 3/4 the way down it says that the policy is to charge for items each < $1000 but together > $1000.

http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=5549

Perhaps in theory they could charge GST/duty but are not organised enough or don't care to associate the multiple packages? would it perhaps be worth getting them sent to different addresses?

Did you say you imported 8 in the one order? Have you imported many things like this i.e. multiple items together > $1000 but each < $1000 ?

Has anyone been charged GST/duty for items posted individually like this?

I believe the Eminence drivers are US made so worst case only GST would be payable which wouldn't be the end of the world anyway...

thanks, DB

 

[broughd]

Hi DB,

I wouldn't get your hopes up with parts express. I was looking to get a couple of sub drivers from them and asked about shipping options. I was told the only way they ship is via UPS, and the charges were SCARY...

If they would just post the things, it'd be worth doing. Still not cheap, but not bad compared to what is in Aus. I don't need to have them here in 3 days via courier, but it seems the only option here.

Cheers,

Mark

Hi!

Yes, got some quotes off USSpeaker and PartsExpress websites

USSpeaker: drivers: US$155 ea, USPS International $155, total US$310ea

PartsExpress: drivers: US$147, UPS $154, total $301ea

Interesting that the postage is the same.

cheers - DB

 

[Brett]

Yes, got some quotes off USSpeaker and PartsExpress websites

USSpeaker: drivers: US$155 ea, USPS International $155, total US$310ea

No custms entry fees, <$1k total Aus so no GST or duty. Usually 5 days air to Sydney (not during Xmas holidays - hold off)

PartsExpress: drivers: US$147, UPS $154, total $301ea

$A65 customs entry fee, (if unlucky) $65 Quarantine fee, $10% GST payable on total of shipping and item, maybe no duty if you can prove item was US made under free trade agreement. Best to have documentation on hand. Usually takes longer to your door and more hassles than USPS. Fedex is better than UPS.