Corporation Greed

This is an older post that I did a while ago which still holds great relevance today.

I recently purchased a brand new 40gb Playstation 3 for $677 (Australian Dollars) from Myers, one of Australias largest department stores. Meanwhile you can get the exact same product in the US for $399 in US Dollars. Now what i quite don't understand is why there is a price different of $277 between the same product when the Australian dollar is almost equivalent to the US dollar. In fact the Australian dollar has never been stronger. Not to mention the economy in Australia has never been stronger and is still showing rapid growth.

Now i know that the retail market in Australia isn't as big nor competitive as it is in the US. But this still shouldn't matter. What i want to know is why Sony are inflating their prices on this specific product by over 50% on the exact same product in Australia when the dollar is almost matching the US dollar? It's not just Sony who does this. The same goes for many other transnational corporations.The obvious solution would be to simply have bought my new PS3 direct from the US from an online retailer such as Amazon.com.

Believe me, i tried doing this only to find that if i did i would be slumped with excessive import and customs taxes. Which i suppose is fair enough as this deters consumers from purchasing outside their own country therefore enabling the retail markets in Australia to remain as competitive as they can without this businesses going completely broke.

But still, this is a question i put to Sony. Why are the prices of your products excessively inflated here while in the US they are significantly lower when the Australian dollar is almost matching the US dollar?