Meguiars in Australia

[davey g-force]

I've been happily ordering my Meguiars supplies from Autogeek for years now, and getting them shipped to Australia. I usually wait till I need several items to make the shipping costs worthwhile.

I'm just about to order a dozen or so Megs products from AG but have been informed that Meguiars won't let AG ship to Australia any more, since we now have an authorised dealer here.

I must say I'm shocked and devastated about this news.

Firstly, we have had an authorised distributor here for a long time (MotorActive). Can someone from Meguiars please confirm that there is not a new distributor here I'm not aware of? I really doubt it though.

BUT HERE'S THE THING: Assuming our sole authorised distributor is still MotorActive, they only carry a limited range of products (mainly consumer line stuff) and most of the products I want are not even offered by them!

I really want to keep ordering and using Megs products but this new "rule" will prevent me from doing so, since the consumer line products offered by our distributor here are so expensive.

Can a Meguiars rep please look into this for me?

Many thanks,

[Detailing by M]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

that su cks
I just contacted my friend in Wagga Wagga, so let's see what he says

[davey g-force]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

Thanks Mario. You know someone in Wagga? That's a pretty small town. Anyway, see what he reckons.

Would be great if someone from Meguiars could chime in, or even PM me.

[kiwiatlarge]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

I wonder if that is the same for us here?... our distributor is Smits Group...

[davey g-force]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

Yeah, it would be interesting to find out.

Either way, I don't think it's very fair and I'm wondering if it breaches any US or Australian consumer / competition laws. If I want to purchase my Meguiars from AG, why shouldn't I be able to? The whole thing is anti-competitive and allows our distributor to charge what they want. Further , it limits my right as a consumer to have access to the entire Meguiars range.

[BillE]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

You might want to PM Mike Stoops about this thread, just to be sure he see it.

Bill

[davey g-force]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

Good idea, thanks Bill.

[Stephan]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

I'm wondering if it breaches any US or Australian consumer / competition laws. If I want to purchase my Meguiars from AG, why shouldn't I be able to? The whole thing is anti-competitive and allows our distributor to charge what they want. Further , it limits my right as a consumer to have access to the entire Meguiars range.

I feel your pain

These types of issues are typically manufacturer/distributor exclusivity agreements and a lot of factors may be involved. Prominence of one brand over another by the distributer, promotions, etc. In either event, I don't envy your situation.

[Selectchoice]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

I've been happily ordering my Meguiars supplies from Autogeek for years now, and getting them shipped to Australia. I usually wait till I need several items to make the shipping costs worthwhile.

I'm just about to order a dozen or so Megs products from AG but have been informed that Meguiars won't let AG ship to Australia any more, since we now have an authorised dealer here.

I must say I'm shocked and devastated about this news.

Firstly, we have had an authorised distributor here for a long time (MotorActive). Can someone from Meguiars please confirm that there is not a new distributor here I'm not aware of? I really doubt it though.

BUT HERE'S THE THING: Assuming our sole authorised distributor is still MotorActive, they only carry a limited range of products (mainly consumer line stuff) and most of the products I want are not even offered by them!

I really want to keep ordering and using Megs products but this new "rule" will prevent me from doing so, since the consumer line products offered by our distributor here are so expensive.

Can a Meguiars rep please look into this for me?

Many thanks,

^^Totally agree with this. I'd love some clarification on the situation too.

[davey g-force]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

Below is my AG shopping list:

D156 spray wax
M135 detailer
D163 Tire & Trim Gel
D115 waterless wash
D151 Paint Reconditioning Cream
Gold Class car wash
Quik Interior Detailer (UID unfortunately not available yet)
Gold Class Leather Cleaner / Conditioner spray
MF pads - 5" cutting, 5" finishing, 3" cutting, 3" finishing
Brake Dust Barrier
Upholstery Cleaner

Only the first one (D156) is actually sold by our authorised distributor, plus it's more than twice the price compared to buying from AG!!

I was hoping to get this stuff before Christmas as a present to myself, but it looks like that probably won't happen now.

Can someone from Meguirs please help me resolve this? I don't want to have to start buying other brands.

[SunnyBoi]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

I don't want to derail the thread but the situation is similar in India We're getting only old stocks (Cut n Finish, M8X compounds) and there has been a recent 50-70% price hike all across the gallon containers as well as acute shortage of most of the stuff that is actually needed by us.

The distributors sitting act as mo rons, not knowing what they sell and what we want. Unfortunate

[davey g-force]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

Things are strangely quiet from the Meguiars reps.

I hope they're not thinking I'll go away if they ignore me!

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

Ah yes, the age old discussion about availability of Meguiar's products outside the USA. Even though this seems like it should be a very simple situation - place an order online, have the product boxed up and put on a plane to your part of the world, make your car clean - things aren't always that simple. Things like contractual agreements, government regulations, warranty issues, etc all come into play here.

Let's look at something as simple as shipping a product to another country. In some cases there are import duties placed on the product by the receiving country's government. This is especially true in Canada and we see all kinds of comments from Canadians on other car forums when, for example, someone puts together a group buy on an exhaust system, turbo boost controller, or some other part. The guys in Canada get hit with an import tax of sorts that they have to fork over to the UPS or FedEx guy. Sometimes this is a fairly sizeable fee/tax. And if there's something wrong with the part and they want a refund, they aren't going to get that tax/fee refunded to them. For an online retailer to ship into a country that imposes these kinds of fees, it can be a real pain to deal with warranty issues, and this is why many online retailers do not ship outside the USA.

We see a lot of comments from consumers in various countries regarding what they see as price inequality between their location and the US. What they often don't take into consideration is import duties, or the fact that our partners in their country may be in a situation where they are solely responsible for all marketing and advertising; they have to ship product in by the container load in order to be even close to profitable; current sales are so low as the line is being introduced to that country that the only way to make up the cost of importing, marketing and advertising is to (at least temporarily) pass those costs along to the early adopters. While this is rare, it has happened. Along these lines, a common concern among our Aussie friends is that there is currently parity (or darn close to it) between the US dollar and the Australian dollar. Why then are prices higher in Australia than they are in the US. Again, there is import fees and costs, volume efficiency, etc. I can tell you from personal experience, watching Top Gear Australia and keeping this currency parity in mind, I was astounded at the price of many European cars in Australia. They are easily double what we pay here in the US. Why? Import taxes/fees/duties?

Here in the US we have something affectionately known as the "chicken tax". This dates back to the early 1960s when France and West Germany imposed an import tax on US chickens shipped to them. In response, the US government imposed a 25% tariff on a variety of materials, including so called "light duty trucks" (ie pickup trucks and similar). This chicken tax still remains on light duty trucks to this day, which is why Toyota and Nissan build their pickups in the US rather than building in Japan and shipping here, like they do with many passenger cars. Ford's Transit Connect even did a sly little move to get around this by shipping to the US as passenger vehicles with two extra rows of seats, then at the port the seats were removed and the vehicles were sold as utility vehicles. Had the 25% tax been imposed they would never be able to sell them simply due to the noncompetitive pricing.

Government regulations can go even further, though. Our much beloved M16 Professional Paste Wax, which we still make today (here in the US, of course) can not be sold here in the US due to changes in environmental regulations. But it can be sold in other parts of the world so we make it solely for export. Gov't regs can also impact labeling, whether that be dual language labels like Canada requires, or the inclusion of certain product information that we don't need to do here, or in other countries. Imagine for a moment the process of creating unique labels for a dozen or more different countries, all with varying requirements, and making sure everything complies. You can't make a single label for everyone (well, if we sold everything to you in 55 gallon drums we could, but that's not practical). Other types of regulations have dictated the availability of certain cars in the US. The much loved Nissan Skyline GTR has existed for many years, but even with the really modern high performance models of the Skyline starting with the R32 in the late 1980s, we still couldn't get them here. Nissan was even building the R31 in Australia to serve that market, but you couldn't legally obtain one here in the US. It wasn't until 2009 with the introduction of the R35 that you could legally buy one in the US, and even that was two years after it was introduced elsewhere.

What does all this have to do with buying Meguiar's products from Autogeek, or anywhere else for that matter, and having them shipped to you? Plenty, actually. All of these same scenarios exist with regard to government regulations and tariffs/taxes/fees. We have contractual obligations with various partners around the world, often including them being the ones to wade through all those regs, taxes, etc. Where it gets a bit difficult for us to manage is just the sheer number of online retailers in existence, and which of those are shipping to individuals such as yourself, when they really shouldn't be. Let's face it, we don't have records of every single sale made by every single online retailer so we don't know who is or isn't shipping outside the US. When circumstances happen to reveal this to us we remind those retailers that these situations exist and ask that they comply. Often all it takes for a retailer to decide that "gray market exporting" of products is not in their best interest is when a warranty issue comes up. If they choose to sell a product to a country where we do not offer that product (due to regs, lack of interest, or whatever) and the individual end user has a problem with that product, it's the seller who's on the hook. If we don't export that product, we don't warranty it in that region either. And this is true of every industry, manufacturer and product. There was a situation here locally in Southern California not too long ago of a guy who had purchased a Mercedes CLK GTR and brought it to the US. The car was not legal for sale in the US and Mercedes had no support for it here. When a problem arose the owner wanted MB to warranty the work needed but they refused, and rightfully so, stating that the car was essentially illegally imported into a country where it is not certified for sale and therefore not supported by Mercedes Benz. The car owner sued MB and lost. This type of situation was fairly common for many such "grey market" cars brought into the US - from Nissan Skyline GTRs prior to 2007 to the Porsche 959 (Bill Gates spent almost two years just trying to get his into the country!!!).

Obviously a few bottles of wax or polish don't sound like much, especially when compared to automobiles costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the rules are very much the same. So Davey, while we do very much feel your pain here, and we would absolutely love for all our products to be readily available world wide (and we would LOVE to have thousands of customers in Australia with your passion for our brand), it really is a whole lot more complex than just putting stuff in a box and shipping it to you. You might even want to reach out to the guys at Motor Active and ask them about their future plans, what they see as viable products to bring in, and even offer your personal thoughts and recommendations. One of our forum members living in South Africa, Woodie6250 (AKA Sean) even went so far as to work with the local SA team to put together training classes modeled on the ones we do here in the US (he actually traveled to California to attend a class!!!). They ultimately rewarded him by bringing him to SEMA a few years ago! This might actually be something interesting for you to get involved in - you're in Sydney and Motor Active is in Silverwater, so proximity is in your favor. Beats the heck out of you being in Brisbane and them in Melbourne. Or Perth. You let us know what's on your mind here, and we welcome that. We're sure the blokes at Motor Active would like to hear your thoughts, too.

[davey g-force]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

Thanks very much for your reply Mike.

Most of the points you've raised, while probably valid for some customers, don't really apply to me.

* There is no import duty / tax for bringing goods into Australia (below $1,000 I think it is). Not that I'm aware of anyway - I've never been hit with any taxes when buying Meguiars products, or even any other stuff off ebay from overseas.

* I'm not complaining about price inequality at all (though I do believe what we are charged here is excessive). I do realise that our distributor has costs involved in importing the goods, marketing, overheads etc and plus they need to make a profit. My main issue is that I'm not allowed to purchase Meguiars products directly from the US, even though our distributor doesn't sell them.

* I can't really comment on Australian Government environmental regulations which would restrict any of your products being sold here. I'm not aware of any, but I can't imagine our environmental regulations would be much different to over there. I am aware though, that we aren't allowed to ship aerosol cans by air, so of the two aerosol products which I originally wanted to purchase, I now intend to substitute one for another brand, and one I will just see what I can buy over here.

* I have absolutely no intention of claiming anything under warranty. If by chance a product doesn't perform as it should (I doubt that will happen), I realise that's my risk. It's too hard to do warranty transactions when purchasing stuff from overseas. Especially stuff with a relatively low value, such as a detailing product.

* I will indeed now contact the guys at Motor Active, who I have had numerous dealings with in the past. I just wanted to hear it from "HQ" first. Hopefully I can convince them to start importing some Megs products that enthusiasts like me actually want to buy. Whether or not I can afford to buy them (based on what they're charging for some other products) remains to be seen though.


So in summary, I think maybe it's time I moved on and broadened my horizons a bit by trying other brands. I do have some "internet knowledge" of other brands (from here and AGO) and I already have a limited number of products by other manufacturers. But unfortunately, it looks like it's time to branch out a bit more. That might also mean spending less time here on MOL. Not because I don't like the place, but I can just imagine there would be nothing worse than wetting my appetite for all the latest & greatest Meguiars products, only to be denied access to them.

Thanks again.

[The Guz]

Re: Meguiars in Australia

Have you tried other places like detailing.com? Another option is to have a friend within the states ship them you.