So everyone would save a great deal of money by ordering the braillers
one at a time for shipment to the patron from Perkins directly rather
than having Vision Australia order a whole bunch hand have to pay
shipping.
Greg Kearney
535 S. Jackson St.
Casper, Wyoming 82601
307-224-4022
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Oct 7, 2007, at 6:17 PM, Luisa Ferronato wrote:
Dear all,
This is Vision Australia's response to the email posted on 30th
September regarding prices for adaptive equipment.
Vision Australia is a not for profit organisation and is the largest
provider of blindness and low vision services in Australia.
Combining the skills and resources of five leading blindness
organisations to create one national voice, Vision Australia is
committed to delivering exceptional and efficient services that open
up
exciting possibilities for our community.
Australians can purchase Perkins Braillers either independently from
the
USA, or through Vision Australia. Vision Australia purchases a bulk
shipment every 1-2 years of approximately 50 Perkins Braillers. Due
to
our shipments being greater than 7kg, Vision Australia is required to
pay for shipping of these Perkins Braillers. Vision Australia's
policy
on the sale of commercial items identifies a mark-up for all equipment
sales that seeks to cover our costs of administration, shipping and
handling.
The current price of $1,325 reflects wholesale prices charged to
Vision
Australia for Braillers that were bought about 12 months. Our next
shipment will be from new suppliers at hopefully a more favourable
exchange rate for the Australian dollar.
Vision Australia endeavours to keep prices as affordable as possible
for
our customers and clients.
With regards
Luisa Ferronato
National Program Manager, Equipment Solutions
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Begin forwarded message:
Some of you might find this interesting.
Consider, if you will, the standard Perkins brailler. A well made
device which has stood the test of time I think we all would agree.
Retail for a new Perkins brailler is US$690.00. (A$802.70) Expensive,
yes but worth it for a device that is expected to last for many
decades of use.
Now consider that Perkins will ship the brailler you order online to
anywhere in the word for free. "Free Matter for the Blind" is an
international postal convention not just in the U.S. and Canada.
Now comes the racket. In Australia, as in most places braillers are
purchased by by governmental or quasi-governmental agencies. In
Australia all of these must place their orders through an outfit
known as Vision Australia that charges A$1325.00 or US$1138.97
for a Perkins brailler. Or in other words a A$336.27 or US$289.06
markup thats a 20.2% markup on each brailler sold. Not bad when you
consider that Vision Australia gets braillers shipped to them at no
cost.
But it's not just Vision Australia, and in fact they are far from the
worst offenders. Consider JAWS in Australia. In the US it goes for
US$895.00 (A$1041.18) a lot of money and then there is the constant
updating costs as well. In Australia the same product with
the same English voices sells for A$2395.00 or US$2058.74 a
markup of A$1353.83 (US$1163.75) or a 32.7% markup. The cost of
shipping packages to Australia can't be that much and if Freedom
Scientific wanted to they could send electronic packages to Australia
at no cost and have them printed and packaged there at far less than
A$1353.83.
This kind of thing, I am told is common with JAWS being marked up at
similar rates in Europe as well. No wonder that in some
rehabilitation
setting in Australia the blind are advised to get Macintosh
computers.
Apple for example charges A$1148 (US$968.82) in Australia for a top
of the line MacMini, which includes the screen reader. In the U.S.
the
same computer sells for US$799 (A
$929.50) or a markup of just A$39.32 or just 4%
Someone in the Australian media should look into this.
End forwarded message.
