90% of It Isn't About the 10% At All

Our retail unions are advocating for the 10% GST to be applied to online purchases from overseas retailers because online retailers have an advantage over local retailers, which are obliged to charge GST.

Even the slightest analysis of this claim however,  reveals it to be a complete red herring.  Those of us who buy goods from overseas retailers do not do it to save 10%.  In fact, I'd happily pay 10% more to buy from a local retailer, but the reality is, I'm usually saving between 40 and 50% on Australian retail prices by buying online.  Why wouldn't I buy overseas?  So, you'd be tempted to say, "Knock me out - add 10% to the overseas price and I'll still be buying from them."  But here's the catch: it would be difficult, not to mention being an unwanted complication, for an overseas retailer to start collecting tax on behalf of the Australian government.  The likely outcome would be that the overseas retailer would simply decide to refuse to ship to Australia (as currently happens with some suppliers).  That's what the retail union is really aiming for.

The unions claim about the 10% advantage is disingenuous at best.  In reality, it's a cynical attempt to try lock Australian consumers back into the over-priced local market.

Grimm Marketing

I see they're showing not just Hansel and Gretel at the cinema but Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters.  Clearly the original title wasn't dramatic enough.  What next? Little Miss Muppet: Dragon Slayer?

And coming soon, we have Jack the Giant Killer which sounds so much more exciting than Jack and the plain old Bean Stalk.  Now I have since found that there is actually an old variation of the tale called Jack the Giant Killer, but you can't tell me that they did not simply pick the most exciting sounding name.  The trouble is, it kind of gives the ending away.

Zoo Illogical

The last 3 lots of people I know that have gone, or were intending to go, to the zoo have all mentioned the same thing. 

They don't talk about how great the animals are or how fabulous the location is, both of which are true by the way.  They talk about how much it cost - $44 for a single ticket, which for four (non-family) friends, together with the ferry costs runs to over $200 between them and that's before you start buying any food and drinks or souvenirs. 

That's surely not the "memorable experience" the zoo management is hoping to give people but like the cinemas which I've complained about previously, there doesn't seem to be much of a plan to raise the frequency with which people will visit the zoo - just the usual plan to fleece as much money out of them on what will most likely be their only visit.  I realise that running a zoo isn't a low-cost affair and perhaps they figure that as most of their customers are tourists, they should maximise how much cash they can grab from them but in doing so, they are also discouraging a lot of would-be customers. 

Now I like the zoo - I even donate money to it - but I haven't been for years.  Come to think of it, perhaps I should stop donating money and use the money I save to buy an annual ticket but surely it shouldn't have to come to that.

Mighty Grand

Instead of spending all that money trying to convince me that Angus beef is something new and special, couldn't McDonalds have spent some time coming up with better differentiated names for their Angus burgers?  Instead, they gave us the Mighty Angus and the Grand Angus.

Mighty and Grand; look up one of those in a thesaurus and you'll find the other.  In a rare moment of verification, I thought I'd check that and sure enough, a search on "Mighty" in Thesaurus.com yields:

august, bulky, colossal, considerable, dynamic, eminent, enormous, extensive, extraordinary, grand, great, heroic, high, huge, illustrious, immense, imposing, impressive, intense, irresistible, large, magnificent, majestic, massive, moving, notable, prodigious, renowned, stupendous, titanic, towering, tremendous, vast.

Funnily enough, most of those are also much better names.  How about an Angus Stupendous, or an Angus Illustrious, or perhaps the Angus Colossal?  Not so hungry?  You can downsize to the Angus Considerable?  Or maybe you just like to keep it simple, in which case, it’s the Angus Huge for you.

Meanwhile back in the the real world, it’s back to the Mighty or the Grand and trying to work out which one has the extra piece of salad on it.

Marketing Madness

Today in the supermarket I saw a product on the refrigerated section that caught my eye.

It was manufactured by "The British Sausage Company with a "Uniquely Australian" sticker on it. The product was Boerewors, very tasty South African sausage. But to get this straight now: that's a uniquely Australian, British sausage company selling South African sausage.

Just thought I'd clarify that.