His Girl Friday Criterion bargain from Amazon.co.uk (1 Viewer)

[AnthonyClarke]

I just ordered the two-disc Criterion Blu ray edition of 'His Girl Friday' from Amazon.co.uk for what I thought was an amazing price of $28 Australian ($21 US) including shipping to Australia.
It was such a good price that I had to go back after purchase and check that I had indeed bought the Blu ray and not a DVD edition!
Bargains like that are going to become very rare now that it looks as if Australians are going to be banned from Ebay and possibly from Amazon from this July due to the idiotic Australian government decree that foreign companies must levy GST on the Australian Government's behalf!

 

[Robin9]

I just ordered the two-disc Criterion Blu ray edition of 'His Girl Friday' from Amazon.co.uk for what I thought was an amazing price of $28 Australian ($21 US) including shipping to Australia.
It was such a good price that I had to go back after purchase and check that I had indeed bought the Blu ray and not a DVD edition!
Bargains like that are going to become very rare now that it looks as if Australians are going to be banned from Ebay and possibly from Amazon from this July due to the idiotic Australian government decree that foreign companies must levy GST on the Australian Government's behalf!

How does that work? If you are buying from Amazon UK, your supplier is not in Australia and is not subject to Australian law. They can safely ignore any decree from Australia.

 

[titch]

The only way for customs to impose GST is by subjecting all imports to a tax levy, based on the retail and shipping cost. Currently, imports to Norway are tax free, if the total retail and shipping costs are under about USD $40. Which means, at the moment, at the current exchange rate, I can only just get regular Criterions from the USA, at the discounted Amazon price of about $26 plus $6 slow shipping, without paying a horrendous customs surcharge. The Criterion discs from the UK are better value for us in Europe at the moment - but I have almost always already purchased the US version! It would be really helpful if Criterion were quicker to announce their UK releases months ahead, as they do with their US releases. I've purchased the UK Criterion versions of His Girl Friday, Mildred Pierce, Multiple Maniacs and Only Angels Have Wings, as these were all released concurrently with the US versions.

 

[Tino]

Speaking of His Girl Friday. FREE. in 35mm.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

The Australian Government is demanding that the point-of-sale retailer levy the tax for them, for any item less than $A 1000. Ebay is saying it will simply bar Australian buyers -- since it doesn't 'sell' but just acts as a contact point. Amazon may just ignore the issue but there is word they'll also ban sales. We'll have to wait and see////

 

[Josh Steinberg]

View attachment 37692 Speaking of His Girl Friday. FREE. in 35mm.

Man, I wish they did screenings on Sundays. I'd love to come out and see a classic film there and get to put a face to the name on you and any other HTF members attending, but I will never, ever be off on a Friday or Saturday night.

 

[Tony Bensley]

I just ordered the two-disc Criterion Blu ray edition of 'His Girl Friday' from Amazon.co.uk for what I thought was an amazing price of $28 Australian ($21 US) including shipping to Australia.
It was such a good price that I had to go back after purchase and check that I had indeed bought the Blu ray and not a DVD edition!
Bargains like that are going to become very rare now that it looks as if Australians are going to be banned from Ebay and possibly from Amazon from this July due to the idiotic Australian government decree that foreign companies must levy GST on the Australian Government's behalf!

I wholeheartedly agree with you regarding your government's idiocy in this! Why should it be up to foreign vendors to do what should be the Australian government's job! Is there any chance they might come to their senses with this asinine decree?

Anyway, all the best!

CHEERS!

 

[M90GM]

I just ordered the two-disc Criterion Blu ray edition of 'His Girl Friday' from Amazon.co.uk for what I thought was an amazing price of $28 Australian ($21 US) including shipping to Australia.
It was such a good price that I had to go back after purchase and check that I had indeed bought the Blu ray and not a DVD edition!
Bargains like that are going to become very rare now that it looks as if Australians are going to be banned from Ebay and possibly from Amazon from this July due to the idiotic Australian government decree that foreign companies must levy GST on the Australian Government's behalf!

The price on Amazon at present is $35 USD plus shipping making the landed price over $50 AUD.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Still cheap when I searched ... under 15 pounds which is about $US 19. Here's the URL
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Frida...14603&sr=8-1&keywords=his+girl+friday+blu+ray

 

[Pictureman]

Amazon already collect tax on behalf of different European governments - when I purchase from Amazon.uk the price is higher on check out because I'm charged at the Irish VAT rate. It looks like Australia wants a similar arrangement.

 

[moviepas]

Amazon is already putting the Australian gst on orders from us but only as an exercise to show what might happen. The included a tax on the postage cost. In an earlier period when it was raised to A$500 before 10% was levied at local customs for postal imports the freight was not taxed. If thru ups etc the threshold was either $350 or $280, can't remember, but freight was akso taxed. The problem was twofold. The freight thru ups was much higher than postal charges in the shipping country. The freight cost easily pushed such shipments into a taxable delivery. Also ups charged per line 1 0c fee after the first 10 on an invoice. So if Deepdiscount listed all the items they held on back-order all those lines had a 10c fee. Ridiculous. The idea is to help Australian small retailers. Rubbish as the discs imported, regardless of cost, are often different to local issues in content or not released here at all or only on DVD where Blu Ray might be available in USA or UK, or those editions might be dual like many from the BFI or other specialist UK producers. The whole thing is down to the demented Gerry Norman who tuns the Harvey Norman franchised electronics stores here and some overseas like Slovenia and they got rid of DVDs out of their stores(or most of them) years ago). In recent years a younger sister worked there briefly in the Head Office in Sydney as an accountant and soon found some shading tax deals and fronted him with it . She was soon let go from the company for the discovery. She died too young of cancer in Feb last year. Harvey's wife is the CEO or whatever of this mob. Now he is bellyaching about Amazon coming and offering home office jobs to people. Amazon already run Kindle services here but I have never used them.

On the basis of Gerry Harvey on Amazon then it should follow that our two major supermarket chains, who are fully Australian owned, should try and run Aldi(who have a number of stores around my home area) out of the country and campaign to prevent Kaufland and Lidl opening or more Costco(who I will not use of principle).

Amazon is anti-tax in the sense that they challenged California over having to charge sales tax on their prices for goods shipped into that state from other warehouses thus was American tax law until recently. They lost which was not a win for customers. UK go have companies registered in non tax British islands like Jersey.

The law has not passed yet but the Government was hoping for July 1 start(the start of Australia's fiscal year). The Labor Party, in opposition, agrees with the tax in principle, but want delays due to facets they are not happy with but I know not what they are. Groups are campaigning to stop it happening for small orders due to the little man being the bunny again and this includes retired people who might, with little money, indulge in a simple hobby like disc or book collecting be be severely restricted on what he buys or erode his meagre pension further. The other angle is that tax levied outside the country means the Australian buyer uses his VISA to pay for the items as invoiced totally by Amazon and this tax is also hit by the 3% most banks charge on payments created off-shore. No sure how it works if you pay thru PayPal who get the funds from you card or bank account. Outside of that fee, I think PayPal's exchange rate might be higher than direct Bank/VISA.

I hope this is clear on what I am trying to impart in this matter that is a serious one for the genuine collector.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Amazon is already putting the Australian gst on orders from us but only as an exercise to show what might happen. The included a tax on the postage cost. In an earlier period when it was raised to A$500 before 10% was levied at local customs for postal imports the freight was not taxed. If thru ups etc the threshold was either $350 or $280, can't remember, but freight was akso taxed. The problem was twofold. The freight thru ups was much higher than postal charges in the shipping country. The freight cost easily pushed such shipments into a taxable delivery. Also ups charged per line 1 0c fee after the first 10 on an invoice. So if Deepdiscount listed all the items they held on back-order all those lines had a 10c fee. Ridiculous. The idea is to help Australian small retailers. Rubbish as the discs imported, regardless of cost, are often different to local issues in content or not released here at all or only on DVD where Blu Ray might be available in USA or UK, or those editions might be dual like many from the BFI or other specialist UK producers. The whole thing is down to the demented Gerry Norman who tuns the Harvey Norman franchised electronics stores here and some overseas like Slovenia and they got rid of DVDs out of their stores(or most of them) years ago). In recent years a younger sister worked there briefly in the Head Office in Sydney as an accountant and soon found some shading tax deals and fronted him with it . She was soon let go from the company for the discovery. She died too young of cancer in Feb last year. Harvey's wife is the CEO or whatever of this mob. Now he is bellyaching about Amazon coming and offering home office jobs to people. Amazon already run Kindle services here but I have never used them.

On the basis of Gerry Harvey on Amazon then it should follow that our two major supermarket chains, who are fully Australian owned, should try and run Aldi(who have a number of stores around my home area) out of the country and campaign to prevent Kaufland and Lidl opening or more Costco(who I will not use of principle).

Amazon is anti-tax in the sense that they challenged California over having to charge sales tax on their prices for goods shipped into that state from other warehouses thus was American tax law until recently. They lost which was not a win for customers. UK go have companies registered in non tax British islands like Jersey.

The law has not passed yet but the Government was hoping for July 1 start(the start of Australia's fiscal year). The Labor Party, in opposition, agrees with the tax in principle, but want delays due to facets they are not happy with but I know not what they are. Groups are campaigning to stop it happening for small orders due to the little man being the bunny again and this includes retired people who might, with little money, indulge in a simple hobby like disc or book collecting be be severely restricted on what he buys or erode his meagre pension further. The other angle is that tax levied outside the country means the Australian buyer uses his VISA to pay for the items as invoiced totally by Amazon and this tax is also hit by the 3% most banks charge on payments created off-shore. No sure how it works if you pay thru PayPal who get the funds from you card or bank account. Outside of that fee, I think PayPal's exchange rate might be higher than direct Bank/VISA.

I hope this is clear on what I am trying to impart in this matter that is a serious one for the genuine collector.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Yes, this is a retrograde action .... I helped fight to make it legal here to sell multi-region DVD players and end the situation where we had such limited choice of DVDs in our little marketplace.
The situation is now as bad as ever as the choice of locally-released Blu rays is so small compared to those available in overseas markets, especially from such niche outlets as Warner Archives, Kino Lorber and of course the great Criterion. This new tax regime is going to make it so much harder and dearer. Of course, it 'protects' the local retailers, who have no desire to stock hard-to-get items, and it 'protects' copyright holders who have exclusive rights to release certain products on the local market but aren't interested in exercising those rights, just in blocking international releases.
The same restrictions hold true in the world of top-end audio. We can't purchase and download high-end audio (such as 24-96 or 24-192 files) from sources such as HD Tracks as copyright forbids HD Tracks and similar from selling to Australian buyers -- even though there is no Australian online retailer interested in offering HD material! It's crazy.....

 

[titch]

I just ordered the two-disc Criterion Blu ray edition of 'His Girl Friday' from Amazon.co.uk for what I thought was an amazing price of $28 Australian ($21 US) including shipping to Australia.
It was such a good price that I had to go back after purchase and check that I had indeed bought the Blu ray and not a DVD edition!
Bargains like that are going to become very rare now that it looks as if Australians are going to be banned from Ebay and possibly from Amazon from this July due to the idiotic Australian government decree that foreign companies must levy GST on the Australian Government's behalf!

Criterion seem to have now raised their UK prices substantially for future releases, after a year of releasing region B versions. Stalker and A Brighter Summer Day are now listed for pre-order on amazon.co.uk at £27.99, a price hike of 65%! This will make them more expensive, or equal to their region A versions - which probably makes business sense for the company, but puts an end to the bargains we were getting for a while! Still, it was great getting His Girl Friday for less than half of what it cost over the pond!