How do they get away with it?

I just checked the upgrade price for Adobe’s Captivate—it’s advertised on their site as US$299 (AU$312 at July 7 exchange rate) and as soon as I clicked Upgrade and had to chose a region (Australia), the price jumped more than 60% to AU$505 (US$481) boxed or almost 50% to AU$455 (US$433) downloaded! And it’s even worse if you want to buy the full product—US$699 (AU$733) compared to AU$1245 (US1185) is a massive 70% increase!

Our currencies have been almost the same most of the year, so you can’t blame the exchange rate.

It’s EXACTLY the same product that I would get if I lived in the US, but because I live in Australia I have to pay an enormous premium on the upgrade price. That’s just not fair. And I can’t order it via the US site (or a US friend) as I have to put in a serial number for the upgrade and that identifies me as living in Australia and thus subject to this draconian pricing. I can’t even pass off the increase as the Australian GST as that’s only 10%, making the AU$312 (exchange rate on US$299) only AU$343, a far cry from AU$455 or AU$505. What a rip-off.

After my experiences with Adobe and its software over the past week (don’t get me started on how impossible it is to log a support call/bug report via their website…), I think I’ll take a long hard look at Camtasia. Techsmith have an excellent reputation and I’m a big fan of their screen capture software, SnagIt. According to their website, Camtasia is US$299 FULL price, so I clicked through a little more, had to select my country (Australia), and it’s still US$299… How refreshing (excuse my cynicism and sarcasm).

I like Captivate, I’ve used it at various client sites, I’m familiar with it, and I’ve praised it to others at conferences etc. I haven’t tried Camtasia for some years. So I guess it’s time to do my comparison. Price will come into it, but so will my feelings of being ripped off by Adobe’s pricing practices. Ultimately it will come down to what I need the software to do and how well both products (and other similar ones, including some freebies and cheapies) stack up.

BTW, there’s a recent article on this sort of price gouging here:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23945533-5014108,00.html

The excuse by Adobe, according to this article, is that Adobe sets the price to appease the local retailers:

… A spokesman for Adobe said local retailers, and not the software company, set the price of Adobe products in Australia and that its online store had been priced to support those retailers.

“When setting our store price we analyse the market and set our pricing accordingly. In this way we try to actively support our local Australian channel partners who have invested a lot in their own businesses,” said Pacific marketing manager Mark Cokes.

“Generally we lean towards slightly higher pricing on our local Adobe store than what you may see on our US site (which, unlike our local prices does not include GST, or international shipping and duty fees).”

Mr Cokes would not explain how shipping fees affected the price of downloads, but ruled out the possibility of Adobe ceasing physical packaging of its products in favour of digital distribution…

Sorry, I just don’t buy that argument. I want to buy from the manufacturer at the manufacturer’s prices and download the software from the manufacturer’s online store. I expect to pay the local taxes of 10%, but that’s all. It’s just a rip off as to all intents and purposes I’m buying direct from Adobe not a local retailer when I shop at the Adobe store. Everything’s branded with “Adobe.com” so I can’t see how I’m dealing with local retailers like City Software (who, BTW, were selling Adobe Captivate 3 upgrade on July 7 for AU$385 a saving of ‘$151 off the RRP’).