Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Tip when buying from the Apple online store

I had previously checked some Apple software in the online store and noted the cost was $29.99 USD. I later went back to the online store and noticed the price was now $44.95 AUD. The difference was I had gone to the www.Apple.com site first and the second time I went to www.Apple.com.au.

Given the Australian dollar is worth around .90 USD, that means buying from the US site offers a saving and since the software is a download, it really shouldn't make a difference. I went ahead and purchase the software for the total price of $29.99 USD.

I later received confirmation of the purchased but was a bit surprised to see Apple had now added tax of $2.47 USD. To me that doesn't seem right, but for the amount I'm not going waste time following it up.

The total price by buying from the US Apple store rather than the Australian Apple store was $38.85. That's around a 14% saving, which isn't a bad saving.

The following are the details of the purchase which I made on the 7th of February.

Software 29.99 USD
FX FEE AUD$ 1.03
Price $35.91 AUD

Tax 2.47 USD
FX FEE AUD$ 0.07
Price $2.94 AUD

Two things to be careful with when buying overseas from Apple is the tax isn't stated and the exchange rate isn't the rate we see quoted in the press. We get a bit less and I normally allow around 6%.

Overall I'm pretty happy I gave the overseas purchase a go.

Kelvin Eldridge

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