are we being ripped off

[evil action]

hey guys im just posting this topic because for some reason ive just found out that if i buy supps from overseas i pay half the price of the product here in nz. i mean yeah theres a longer wait and a shipping fee but if you buy in bulk it ends up being way cheaper. Im just wondering how much mark up is being made on supplement products and is the mark up so big because of tax and gst or what and who are the suppliers that are used by sportsfuel and shotgun etc.Im not saying that there may be something wrong here with our nz distributors i have much respect but just a little thing for everyone to think about we all want results why do we pay a fortune for suppelments. I hope you guys post on this subject

[thatwaslight]

its called simple economics.

[Gym rat]

I have offten thought about that as well at times like when I see the cost of supplements in the states.I think I wish us kiwis paid the excate same price for supplements and no disrespect to all the supplement shops through out NZ including all the all online supplement shops like shotgun etc.In some of the issues of the amercan verson of Flex that I got from Oldfella had adds for diffrent online supplement shops in the states.I amazed how cheap superpump 250 is in the US and the same for five pound 100% whey from optium also BSN No Xplode it made thought I wish we paid the same price for supplements hear.If we did pay the same price for supplements what they do in the states it would be a great way to save plus what I have notice some of top major brands are very expensive all ready hear in NZ for the likes of Muscletech BSN just name a couple off hand.

[crazyfacials]

some american/canadian companies brag about using NZ protein too :/

[BIGKIWI]

Comes down to economies of scale, we don't have the buying power of the big american companies even though they make it with our whey protein

[pyro]

Have a look at the iherb site and the pictures of their warehouse. When they are that large and pushing through that much product they can afford to flick it off cheaper, which is how they get customers.

[Shutupandsquat]

NZ companies would buy some of their shit in bulk from America and so they have to sell it for more so that they can make profit.

[Darkmanx]

It is actually well documented somewhere that i have read that NZ are really getting ripped off almost in every part retail not just the supplements. There was actually on good morning about 3 or so years ago they had a big discussion as how we are actually getting ripped off.

If you take currency and fluctuations out and measure it and take US dollar here vs US dollar in the us we pay quite a bit more in that respect. It is NZ gov economics with that absolutely screws us badly.(thanks customs charges thanks to gst and what ever else) Thank goodness that the gov brought back parralel importing and also allows us to import things without having to have special licences, well up to NZ$400 anyway before you get bum fucked by the gov again. Then there is the problem with distributors that put their prices on pounces on people who import things and might want to make a buck or two getting fuckin sued arround evry corner just because they signed a piece of paper with vendors giving them full carte blance so to speak. And i fuckin hate these AUS distributors that think they automatically qualify to distrubute to nz too without any interference. I know the whole bulk buy thing come into effect as well but you guys would be surprised to know that there is almost very little difference in price to what vendors give to distributors irrespectfull of how much they buy. Trust me ive seen it first hand. It all comes down to a tier pricing system for distributors. everybody pay the same price for min quatity and same for max quantity no matter the size of your business. It all comes down to the cash brah.

Anyway im heading of topic a little but i wanted to vent a little and give a little insight. But most of you proabaly might have known this already

[evil action]

i understand that companies here have to make a profit but really double the price or near it its a bit steep. You know what i might have a new business plan. :pfft:

[evil action]

your right darkmanx so up to 400 dollars mmmmmmm i might just buy a few products flick it on trademe for something way more affordable and see how we go. im sick of paying big bucks and sick of other people not being able to afford supps and f*ck the government im gonna try find away around those fucks

[Android]

iSatori IsaTest selling here in NZ for $109 can be brought from BB.com for (US $45 ea. converts to NZ $60 today...plus freight).

So you can get it conservatively for $30 cheaper...if you only brought that one item that is.

You can get 3 of them for the same frieght cost and get them for $40 cheaper EACH.

The N.Z distributor that deals with BSN, Gaspari, MHP, MuscleTech is NutritionSystems and every website/ shop in NZ that sells these prodcuts has to get it from them...excluding Xtreme Nutrition who buys it in the U.S for his U.S shops and brings it over himself.

Another distributor is Topmark Nutrition and they distribute iSatori and PVL products around the shops and websites. I found that BB.com was cheaper than what this distributor was selling it to retailers for LOL

You can buy everything from the U.S yourself but it's not worth buying protein powder as the weight in freight ends up to much. Even using distributors in Oz doesn't make moving Protein powders around the countries viable in small amounts.

For all other products like NO powders and pills it is worth it. But the limit is $400-500 each order else you're liable to pay GST which cuts into any saving you make, something to consider as it's usually worht it as long as the exchange rate is favourable.

It's most worth buying from the U.S when the currency xchange is 0.76c and above. Getting up to 0.80c and over and it starts to look attractive enough to start a business with.

[evil action]

Thanx android for the info

[Darkmanx]

iSatori IsaTest selling here in NZ for $109 can be brought from BB.com for (US $45 ea. converts to NZ $60 today...plus freight).

So you can get it conservatively for $30 cheaper...if you only brought that one item that is.

You can get 3 of them for the same frieght cost and get them for $40 cheaper EACH.

The N.Z distributor that deals with BSN, Gaspari, MHP, MuscleTech is NutritionSystems and every website/ shop in NZ that sells these prodcuts has to get it from them...excluding Xtreme Nutrition who buys it in the U.S for his U.S shops and brings it over himself.

Another distributor is Topmark Nutrition and they distribute iSatori and PVL products around the shops and websites. I found that BB.com was cheaper than what this distributor was selling it to retailers for LOL

You can buy everything from the U.S yourself but it's not worth buying protein powder as the weight in freight ends up to much. Even using distributors in Oz doesn't make moving Protein powders around the countries viable in small amounts.

For all other products like NO powders and pills it is worth it. But the limit is $400-500 each order else you're liable to pay GST which cuts into any saving you make, something to consider as it's usually worht it as long as the exchange rate is favourable.

It's most worth buying from the U.S when the currency xchange is 0.76c and above. Getting up to 0.80c and over and it starts to look attractive enough to start a business with.

In a nutshell just about. However there is one particular distributor that that does not have distribution rights for all products yet throws threats of court action if they catch you selling supps that they have rights to in AUS.

That is bullshit plus the fact in NZ you can parallel import which basically puts that whole threat into nothingness. They cant do shit to ya. I believe there are on or two online supp stores that actually trade in this manner only. Also talking to Vendors in the states they are open to having more distributors aspecailly here in NZ. All it takes is a few emails and calls and you should be on your merry way of having a successful supplement business, providing you know how to do the business part of it and obviously bucket loads of cash. Anyway just my experience and 2cents.

[reggzie]

You can buy everything from the U.S yourself but it's not worth buying protein powder as the weight in freight ends up to much. Even using distributors in Oz doesn't make moving Protein powders around the countries viable in small amounts.

For all other products like NO powders and pills it is worth it. But the limit is $400-500 each order else you're liable to pay GST which cuts into any saving you make, something to consider as it's usually worht it as long as the exchange rate is favourable.

It's most worth buying from the U.S when the currency xchange is 0.76c and above. Getting up to 0.80c and over and it starts to look attractive enough to start a business with.

depends how you do it. i try to order with friends to split the shipping costs. buying a branded tub (will use myofusion as the example) from iherb costs like 75 bucks including shipping if you order in 3s and split the shipping cost. takes like 4 days total to arrive so theres really no downside unless youre big on supporting nz businesses or something. without any sort of mates rates or anything the cheapest you can pick that up here (as far as i know) is 90 bucks.

im sure there are even cheaper brands that can be found but a 5lb twinlab tub ordered this way is closer to ~65. well worth it imo

[Android]

You can buy everything from the U.S yourself but it's not worth buying protein powder as the weight in freight ends up to much. Even using distributors in Oz doesn't make moving Protein powders around the countries viable in small amounts.

For all other products like NO powders and pills it is worth it. But the limit is $400-500 each order else you're liable to pay GST which cuts into any saving you make, something to consider as it's usually worht it as long as the exchange rate is favourable.

It's most worth buying from the U.S when the currency xchange is 0.76c and above. Getting up to 0.80c and over and it starts to look attractive enough to start a business with.

depends how you do it. i try to order with friends to split the shipping costs. buying a branded tub (will use myofusion as the example) from iherb costs like 75 bucks including shipping if you order in 3s and split the shipping cost. takes like 4 days total to arrive so theres really no downside unless youre big on supporting nz businesses or something. without any sort of mates rates or anything the cheapest you can pick that up here (as far as i know) is 90 bucks.

im sure there are even cheaper brands that can be found but a 5lb twinlab tub ordered this way is closer to ~65. well worth it imo

I didn't know it was saving that much tbh, cheers. I remember buying in x20 5lb bags of Syntrax Matrix and it worked out to be around $70 ea.

And you're right $90 is the usual 5lb price from friends with shops :-)

[severe]

You (and the rest of us) just have to plan it better. Looking at the pros and cons, sometimes it is better to buy here, other times not.

Just like working out a training plan for the gym, you need to save and buy BEFORE you need it.

BCAA are cheaper here through nutratech, and that is all I value.

[Flex]

You guys crack me up. Why not just import a corvette and sell it instead? I hear you can pick them up dirt cheap in the USA and sell them for good money here. Why *** around with importing a few supps and making $5 here and there off them when you could make $5k easy off one car sale.

Or what about a house - they're practically giving those away for free over in the USA at the moment. There are acres of abandoned subdivisions over there so you could go over there and make a mint.

Or maybe you could go to china and find some cheap labour to manufacture some goods and sell them cheap in NZ like The Warehouse.

Everybody says the supermarkets are ripping you off too - Why not go down to the fruit and vege markets at 4am and buy up some produce and sell it cheap undercutting the supermarkets?

Or you know you could find a plot of land, plant some pine trees, wait 12 months and sell them off in Dec for $30 each.

*** you know what - the guy at the dairy charged me $1.70 for a can of coke the other day - how dare he. I'm going to go buy a tray of them and sell them for $1.50 each on the side of the road - that'll learn'em to try and make some money.

Or you could build a manufacturing business, employ some kiwi's to make and sell your goods, export them overseas, set up offices and distribution overseas and make millions, or maybe that's too much hardwork.

Easier to buy some supps off bb.com, sell it on trademe and undercut the legitimate businesses that pay tax and gst in NZ and that have to jump through hoops with medsafe to get compliance. You can make some money to buy some beers for the weekend or get some new speakers for you car - yeah cool, that's a good business plan. No one has thought of that before so there must be a huge gap in the market for that.

Android and Darkmanx - you guys are posting here but both used to sell supps - what happened to stop you from continuing it?

[Android]

Inventory and orders don't excite me.

Being available 24/7 on an 0800 number means you can't really switch off your phone.

You have to remember an order when a mate bumps into you on the street and rambles off what they want.

Parcels get lost you have to follow-up with the courier and deal with the customer.

Shipments arrive late or you run out of stock that someone just brought online and must supply.

I could go on...

I finally stopped doing it because I got too busy. Sportstrition went from $0 - $14,000/mth sales in 5 months and I wasn't prepared for something that started out as a hobby interest.

I'm a software developer and built an e-Commerce site from scratch in my spare time (as software developers often do) and decided to sell a few things to see it work in action...and people just started to order. I picked supplements because it's what I took alot of and tried loads of products that weren't sold in NZ, but I could have sold anything with the website. You pick the product you know and are passionate about and you can sell anything this way.

It was crazy, in the end I was carrying parcels to the Post shop every single day before work and coming home from work for more orders to fill. With a baby arriving it wasn't in my families best interests to have 2 jobs even if one of them was run from home. I was just about to employ the neighbours kid to do the orders until I thought of advertising it on TradeMe first. I sold the business for $22k just 2 days later (taxable, legit) to a guy over on the East Coast. Was so relieved when that went through there were times that I just wanted to shut the site down tbh.

He found it was too hard to keep up with orders as he was in his 50's and thought a website business would be the quiet life, so I think he rang NutritionSystems and they put him on to Shotgun to buy his stock.

It was a load of fun building the site and then creating a business around the attention that it got but never once thought that I was doing it because it was a cheap way to get supplements.

[Gasp]

This is nonsensical really.

Nobody rips you off when you accept a deal.

If anything you rip youself off. Just dont be impatient and feel you have to buy it here and now and wait an extra day or two.

I know the local distributors dont like to here it but NZ shops have high overheads and generally have to inflate their prices.

Theres plenty of good deals around overseas and,like someone has said, split the freight.

iherb USA have some great prices, good freight rates and its here in a couple of days.

End of story.

[Darkmanx]

Well Flex to answer your question, i am more and less in the same situation that android is in. I have other interest that i wanted to focus on for now. Yes i still sell supplements but only localy and i have moved away from a standalone supplement shop business model to focus more on other aspects that im more interested in. I will eventually have another online presence but it would be in a different business model and yes there will be supplements but very little.

Quite frankly i think the NZ market is absolutely saturated with supplement shops. I agree that that there are taxes and stuff involved but it just reriterated what i already said in my post. I think the high prices here are a side effect of all GST's and compliances and all that bureaucratic shit we have to jump through to make a business work here. After all NZ is one of thee strictest countries in the world. However, like i also said put aside the taxes and shipping cost and all other stuff, generally NZders are paying up to double if not sometimes tripple for products thats no different than what you would get in the US or anywhere else. This is dollar for dollar value meaning, take a product cost price here turn it to US dollar and take cost of same product in the states and you would find quite a difference. i do get what you mean by your post. Anyway thats it.

[HarryB]

What I find interesting is that local brands here in Aus charge so much, similar to the US brands and yet don't have all the extra charges associated with importing. Always makes me wonder.

[BIGKIWI]

The thing that bugs me quite a bit is most of the top brands use New Zealand whey repackage it add couple of ingredients then sell at at hugely inflated prices. Just like milk you would think they would help out the locals but money is the major objective

[bigkev]

Hey guy's really interesting listening to your comments and all have sound points, for sure.

I have been a strength and conditioning coach in the US, UK and Aus for about 22yrs and done pretty well out of it, but not well enough to come back home and put my feet up, so i am always looking to build a passive income pref thru and health and fitness an industry i have worked hard in to build my reputation and resume over the years.

But we live in a world now where the web is starting and will continue to over take and (i think) eventually negate retail shopping to virtual extintion...which is bloody sad but it will happen( a bit like what the digital camera did to polariod film).

When i was in the US i would use my contacts to purchase discounted supplements and then mark them up to my clients and teams a bit like throwing them on trademe as suggested.

However coming home to NZ i realised that in order for everyone to be able to get access to top supps i couldnt mark them up because then i would have been just like the importers clicking the ticket.

so now i use iherb but i DONT mark up or even onsell. I send my clients, contacts, teams my code : http://www.iherb.com/?rcode=PIV738

Then they get their own code to pass on if they want because it gives people US$5 discount on their first purchase...paying it forward

So then they get the supps at the cheapest possible price and i get a 4% kickback for just the referral which over the last 12months gives me approx on average US$1700 a month so far.

So have fixed two probs 1. getting supplements to people at the lowest price and 2. building a passive income... also must be pointed out that one of my brothers mate's in Aussie who is a jockey is earning what i am after only 7months so everyone is a winner except maybe the importers who for years have had me and my clients pay twice as much of our hard earned money to them for the same product. Sorry if i sound like a jerk but i can now spend that 50% of money i'm saving on better stuff with my kids or an extra room in the house i am building.

Guy's not wanting to step on anybodies toes with my views...so i hope i haven't.

Cheers

[Jimb0]

The mark up is tiny - especialy because most outlets are not charging full RRP

[Darkmanx]

The mark up is tiny - especialy because most outlets are not charging full RRP

You seem to forget that in retail the general rule of thumb RRP is usually 100% more than cost.

I use to work for a certain shop and their markup on some items were 400%. Not 40 but 400. Give you an example a item i bought on staff price was $49 and it was on the shelf for $299.