This sux

S

shaun1970

Well-known member
Before Xmas last year, the company whom I bought my DVX off was selling the HMC152 for $5500, I rang them today to buy some more PQ tape for the DVX and out of curiosity asked "how much are you doing the HMC152 for now?"
To my surprise I nearly choked when he told me they are now $7200,,, what?
Crazy in this economic environment if big comapnies can still think hold margins with fluctuating dollar prices. Before Xmas our dollar wasn't much better placed than it is now against the US dollar and most companies here in AU have jacked the prices by 20% or more to recoupe losses in the falling dollar,,,, what a crock of cr*p. We are lowly sinking into recession here too and by doing this, well it ain't really helping the economic situation if retail is already suffering its worst sales figures in years

But the mentality of big multi nationals is to hold margin and never let them fall, ahh well I say it just means that I won't be buying it anytime soon, not until prices get realistic again.
 
well hopefully the economy will slip back to normal within the next few years. My jaw dropped when you said $5,500.........then you said AUS, i was like, haha, man you're in for a scam.
 
Boy do I feel lucky, I got my two for $4900AUD each with 4 x 16GB Panasonic cards thrown in just before Xmas!!
 
i know! it's f-ing ridiculous! sony, panasonic and jvc all went up by two grand.... canon seems to be holding the same prices though....
 
recession... starting to look more like the dark ages. Error of Bush is over, but now we pay the price... globally that is.
 
Perhaps you folks might want to look into the current currency exchange rates? Over the last six months the australian dollar has ranged from a high of 90.24 yen to today's 59 yen. That can pretty easily explain the price increase without having to resort to theories of global conspiracy, evil corporations, and whatnot.

Last time I was in New Zealand the NZD was worth about 93 US cents. Today, it's worth 52 US cents. Want to buy a house? A New Zealand house that cost $580,000 US dollars a couple of years ago now costs about $300,000 US dollars. The NZ housing market may be off by 10%, but throw in the currency exchange rate differential and it's enormously affected.

The Australian dollar is really weak right now. So's the NZD. The USD isn't as bad, so we'll probably see some price increases but not that huge; our dollar range against the yen has ranged from a high of 108 to today's 92.8.
 
Add to everything, Panasonic letting thousands of their workforce go! I'm sure there will be a shortage of 150's, which will most likely increase prices. Not good. Globaly or otherwise!
 
The professional video division was largely unaffected by the layoffs at Panasonic. Remember, it's a huge diverse company, and Jan indicated that professional was largely untouched.
 
Seriously I know. The HMC150 + 16 GB + 5800 battery was $3999 Canadian this past December and it went up to $4699 Canadian in January and will go up again at the end of February. :O Too bad I couldn't cough up enough $$$ this past December and I would've saved a lot!
 
Barry, AFAIK, that exchange rate change is not a major part of the price rise. I bought my 152 from the same dealer as Evro (he bought two), and the dealer told me that the price would jump 20% in January. As he is a dealer I trust, I bought then. I checked with Panasonic Australia, and was told the same thing.

As I recall, the exchange rate then was around the 90¢ to the USD—if we factor that change in as well as the 20% increase, we are luck the 152 doesn't cost $8,500 presently.
 
Kit_L said:
Barry, AFAIK, that exchange rate change is not a major part of the price rise. I bought my 152 from the same dealer as Evro (he bought two), and the dealer told me that the price would jump 20% in January. As he is a dealer I trust, I bought then. I checked with Panasonic Australia, and was told the same thing.

As I recall, the exchange rate then was around the 90¢ to the USD—if we factor that change in as well as the 20% increase, we are luck the 152 doesn't cost $8,500 presently.
Click to expand...


How does this prove it is not related to exchange rates?
 
casey, please re-read my post.

I was talking about the fact that the increase in the exchange rate post-dated the price rise; the price rise was scheduled in December *before* the Aussie dollar fell. If we add the exchange rate fall to the 20% scheduled rise, we get almost twice the present increase over what I and others paid in November, 2008.

IOW, two unrelated factors adding to the present price. And that projected price that adds these two factors I mentioned ($8,500) is AUD (so $5,400 USD). hth, kl
 
i saw the same thing, but luckly i bought my 152 in december before the price went up

you see all the distributers, (pano aust would be no different ) forward order 3 months at a time, when they place their order they pay at what ever our aussie banana dollar is against what currency the manufacturer wants.

so the order cycle for the 152 ended 31 jan and the new started 1 jan. the arse fell out of our currency hence the price rise

and when you consider it fell by 30% then a 20% increase seems quite fair, :)
 
The facts are as follows. On Jan 15 the RRP of the 152 went from $6135 to $7531, an increase of 18.5%. In the same time our aussie to yen rate went from 96 to 59, in increase of 28.1%. If you do the math you'll work out what we are absorbing in an effort to protect our customers from the real diference.
Our competitors put up their prices last November. We held out 2.5 months hoping the Aussie dollar would strenghten.
Yes our exchange rates are locked in for 3 months. In the near future we will review pricing based on exchange rates.
 
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