Our son & his wife recently imported 70 double glazed, safety glass replacement windows from China. Total cost for the Melbourne delivery was just $5,000.
Based on local quotes they had been facing costs in the order of $20,000!
IMO the message for retailers who have profiteered for yonks on the back of massive markups is that the Aussie consumer is carrying a lot of debt & can't keep doing that just to keep you in business.
Special thanks to John Howard & Peter Costello btw for overseeing that historic increase in consumer indebtedness - see below.
Alan Kohler's graphs for 29.7.11 Household Sector Debt - shows that for Australia from 1996 to 2007 that household debt rose from ~55% of GDP to ~105% of GDP.
