International AMAZON AUSTRALIA (1 Viewer)

[Robin9]

There is now an Amazon in Australia. Because of comments made by Australian posters about Blu-ray discs released down there, I searched for Hour Of The Gun. Guess what? Amazon Australia is exclusively a Kindle and Android App store!

I assume that eventually Amazon Australia will mature into a normal Amazon operation, useful for film enthusiasts.

 

[AshJW]

I assume that eventually Amazon Australia will mature into a normal Amazon operation, useful for film enthusiasts.

I would be very pleased.

 

[Ed Lachmann]

The same is true of Amazon Brazil, sadly, since I'd love to order feature film and music DVDs and BDs from them, as well.

 

[moviepas]

I did a survey(paid) for a firm about Amazon and Australia as there were plans to set up here if enough interest. Might have been a year ago now. They would need to have a warehouse here or attach themselves to someone. There is a lot of competition for such a small population and one often sends local stuff to me from their New Zealand warehouse and not from their large Sydney one. They have just added a $3 fee per title to all DVDs & Blu Rays but not to CDs, books, other goods including toys(we are the biggest store store in Australia claim). The free postage we enjoyed also took in goods they accessed from USA or Europe till now. They also claim they are cheapr than Amazon which a few times was true for me. But sometimes they refund when the import title becomes unavailable from the source at the price they were offering.

I tried to order the Blu ray of Midnight Lace which came out last Sept here and it was $9.11 and a great price even with the postage added so I tried to order but the pages jammed for a period of time and next I knew the price was $11.99 so I ordered from the publisher who's price equalled what I was now going to have to pay the on-line.

Witness for the Prosecution is also on Blu Ray in Australia and I have ordered that.

 

[classicmovieguy]

Better off ordering from JB HiFi. Sadly I don't think this country can cope with another online DVD/Blu retailer. We have a few leaders (JB and EzyDVD) - others can't seem to compete with their lower prices. Apart from JB physical stores are no longer carrying large well-stocked ranges of DVDs or Blu's. Its very sad.

 

[Brian McP]

I totally agree with you Classic -- besides JB HiFi are slowly but surely scaling back their dvd stocks in their stores (slightly expanding their bluray range, but this will solely depend on what is released). I think in 5 years JB will be quite a different store and we'll all be getting our movies from a cloud....each title for a limited time only.

I think Amazon.com.au will remain a kindle store -- but will certainly expand to be similar to their US site in selling movie downloads.....and that will be JB's worst nightmare.

And if the GST goes to 15% -- who knows what will happen?

 

[AnthonyClarke]

I sincerely hope you're wrong Brian about your Cloud prediction ... does any service here in Australia offer an HD download service? If titles were, as you suggest, available for only a limited time, then we would have to be able to download a saveable (and therefore burnable) file but I don't think we'll ever be offered here a useful library of HD titles because of copyright restrictions .. no Warner/MGM titles for instance.

 

[Nebiroth]

Unfortunately, most Australian DVD stores tend to charge horrendously high international postage for boxsets.

I also found that DevotedDVD tends to be far better priced than JB and certainly EZY. And their international postage is way more reasonable too.

 

[hypnotoad8128]

Sadly it's true that retailers here in Australia are scaling back their facings of BD/DVD stock and are redirecting shelf space into products that make them better margins. JB Hi-fi - currently - are about the only retailer that carries good range of films and TV shows now, but how long will that last for?

 

[Persianimmortal]

It's not really a problem, at least for me, because I find that most movies wind up being cheaper simply by buying them from Amazon US or UK. And of course, many movies never get an Australian release on blu anyway. Aside from the general decline of physical media, I think this is one reason why shelf space devoted to Blu-rays and DVDs is shrinking in Australia - most people who are enthusiasts and thus more into physical media know enough to get the best deal by shopping from overseas. It's hard to feel sorry for Aussie retailers because the prices for BDs have been somewhat ridiculous. There are many instances where, even including the cost of shipping, I have purchased BDs from the US at less than 50% of the price of the local release. Not all of the blame lies with retailers of course, because as I understand it, it has more to do with distributor monopolies and higher wholesale prices.

Which brings us back to why it's unlikely that Amazon Australia is ever really going to maintain a large local warehouse of BDs and DVDs. With the higher local distributor costs, and I believe with parallel import laws blocking direct importation, Amazon AU just wouldn't be competitive. The only area where it would make sense is for Amazon AU to stock the Australian-exclusive BD releases, as there would be quite an overseas market for those.