First up this isn’t an attack on GW’s prices as such. At the moment GW’s New Zealand prices are actually on par with GW US prices if you factor in our local 12.5% sales tax, the US/NZ$ exchange rate and add a little for shipping.
However in my opinion this still makes them too expensive to be good value locally. For example I priced up the 1500pt Eldar army that appeared in White Dwarf 323 (Asia Pacific, page 28 sidebar) last year. It works out to $924nz locally, while costing $477USD in the States. In my particular industry salaries are on par in both countries. I used to work in Silicon Valley in 2001 and was paid a similar figure to my current NZ salary. The USD simply has more buying power due to economies of scale.
So I think it’s worth noting that there are several Aussie online retailers that sell Games Workshop box kits below retail. Scrap Dragon for example seem to sell with 20% discount, with the Eldar boxed set costing $120AU instead of the $150AU GW Aussie sell it for. Their shipping fees airmail to NZ equate to about 16% too.
New Zealand citizens ordering from an Australian company are not required to pay Australian sales tax either, which equates to another 10% discount, although it’s hard to say if Scrap Dragon will give you that additional discount or not, or state their prices already exclude Australian GST. The later is more likely since they’re a web store, but I couldn’t find that particular detail on their site.
It is also worth noting that Customs New Zealand generally won’t bother trying to collect GST (NZ sales tax) when the value of that GST is $50nz or less (see Advice for Importing Goods from the NZ Govt site) which effectively means items worth $399nz or less can be imported without incurring GST on arrival.
So assuming we buy from Scrap Dragon and ship airmail to NZ we save…
-20% discount
-12.5% GST
+16% shipping
For a discount of 16.5% all up which is not bad at all, considering delivery times between Aussie and New Zealand are fairly prompt, usually around 5 working days in my experience.
Addendum: I’ve just received an email from Scrap Dragon that states their prices DO include Australian GST which means if you set up an account on their web site and inform them you’re a New Zealand citizen shipping to New Zealand you’ll get an extra 10% off. That pretty much means I’m never purchasing GW figures locally again.