On July 1 this year, online retailer, Amazon, banned the shipping of items to Australia from its US and UK stores. From tomorrow, that ban will be lifted.
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The original ban was introduced in reaction to then-Treasurer Scott Morrison‘s move to charge the GST on items purchased overseas. Jeff Bezos – the richest fucking man in the world – decided he didn’t wanna cop the cost and chose to instead stop international shipping to Australia altogether.
“The second biggest company in the world, run by the richest man in the world, shouldn’t get a leave pass from paying tax in Australia, and they won’t under these new laws to be introduced from July 1 that level the playing field,” Morrison said back in June.
But now the company has backflipped on the decision just in time for Black Friday sales. How convenient.
“As a result of customer feedback, from November 22 Amazon customers will be able to ship eligible items from Amazon.com to Australian delivery addresses,” an Amazon spokeswoman told news.com.au.
There’s a catch, though. You’ll only be able to ship from Amazon directly, which means anything available from the platform’s third-party sellers won’t be available.
Of course, Amazon also opened an Australian branch this year, but it sucks quite a lot. It stocks only a fraction of what’s available overseas and for the most part, is much pricier. In other words, it likely hasn’t been performing very well.
It’s hard to say whether the reinstated international shipping is a result of poor local performance or simply an easy way to make a few extra bucks on Black Friday sales despite the added GST costs. Either way, it’s good news for Aussie consumers.
