The Naim export sales team have been asked to look into it. Hopefully we will get some clarity on this.
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Cheers. When I bought my first gen Muso 5 years it was around $1,400.00 , the 2nd gen is $2,500.00. While I understand itās been upgraded itās a huge jump in price.
Just to put some things in perspective most of my suppliers (work) who import all operate in US dollars, so thatās not that unusual, I donāt I stand it but itās quite common.
I take Richardās point about the independence of distributors but a bit more corporate oversight wouldnāt go amiss, as distributors can be new, greedy or incompetent, and sometimes all three.
I think something like 40% of their products are exported so itās not insignificant and needs to be seen as fair. Otherwise faith in the brand reduces and sales fall. Obviously there are extra costs such as transport and distributor overheads, and taxes vary from country to country. But things like the relative prices of SN2 and SN3 in NZ and the US seem bizarre. Nobody likes the idea that they are being ripped off.
Well while some good importers will ā'bend over backwards to help youā
With this Aust mob seems you gotta ābend over forwardsā!
D41
I do love a good pile on as much as anyoneā¦
However, the Australian partner of a very respected UK speaker company has recently had to increased their line by about 10% across the range as well.
So itās not just the local Naim agent that has decided its time to increase local prices against the stronger Ā£ or US$.
No one said anything about trying to deal with the distributor directly. I am working through my dealer.
Iām sorry I guess this part of your post confused meā¦
Sorry for the confusion. It was all arranged through my dealer.
That makes senseā¦ Thanks and carry on 
Maybe I can help some people here understand some of the local complexities of selling a product not manufactured in their own country.
The price you (the consumer) pay is inclusive of VAT or Sales Tax. This differs by country.
The price the distributer pays is the price the product is sold to them by Naim (very likely the same as a UK dealer pays minus a small %), they then pay for shipping (expensive for heavy boxes insured irrespective of country), they then pay a customs clearance charge, import duty (you can find out your countries specific rate easily for this type of product), depending on how they pay Naim there may also be bank charges for a letter of credit, there will be currency conversion costs (its not free to exchange money!) and finally they pay the freight forwarding company to receive the goods once all duties are paid. The VAT/Sales TAX/GST is also paid at this point but then reclaimed and then paid out against the selling price of the product rather than the buying price.
The reason that almost all distributors use USD as a base price is because most goods are bought in USD. Its only a base. In the UK we use USD as base currency most of the time.
The main determining factors here are distributor margin and the country specific import duty rate. Every country will be different.
If Naim (based in the uk) manufactured in the far east like most companies the difference would be far less between markets as they would also have the above costs when bringing the goods into the UK. All other locals would bring the goods direct from the factory in the far east. The only difference then would be exchange rate and local differences in import duty. Its incredibly rare for companies like Naim to still be able to manufacture in the UK so actually in the UK we get a benefit thats not possible anywhere else!
In all countries outside of the UK the distributor must make a margin and so must the dealer. The dealer will make the biggest margin by far in most markets however in AU and NZ distributors take a bigger cut as their cost of operating a business appears to be higher than other countries. This could also be cultural/historical in those markets and maybe they just expect moreā¦
Thanks for your explanation Steve.
However I still feel thereās a bit of gouging going on. For instance they seem to have cherry picked how much certain items will increase 10%, 15%, 20%, unlike in the UK where there was a general 5% increase.
Do they think that you have to be rich to afford a 555ps so they increase that by 20%?.
A bit more transparency would not go amiss.
Thanks HH, it will be interesting what they say.
@Praggers as they are a distributor I suspect they are working on a set mark up across the whole range and offer set margins to the dealers and these prices are the end product of that exercise. This is far easier than having individual pricing for all products. No one wants that! They will make X% and the dealer will make X% (selling at retail)
This could be considered āgaugingā but seeing as Naim do not set a retail price in this location then it is up to the distributor. As a distributor you want to make life simple for yourself and your dealers. Only time will tell if the prices are right for the market or not! Most likely the new distributor promised higher sales to Naim, otherwise why would they move? Unless of course they were unhappy with the previous distributor.
4 people are having to make money on these boxes sold in your country (Naim, Customs, Distributor & Dealer) vs 2 in the UK! There may have been a need for a price rise for everyone to make moneyā¦ I think many people would be shocked at how much money the dealer makes (demand)!!
Cost is always an issue and people (companies) do need to make money or itās just not worth it. My main concern is the new Aus distributor doesnāt seem to be keen as the last guys. They distributor lots of other brands and Naim is simply just another. Iāve seen a drop off of ads in the local hi fi media, a sharpe price increase and dealer uncertainty. I hope Iām proved wrong only time will tell.
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When you distribute naim, it has to be your favourite product, it must be your Rolls Royce, your baby, just as it was when Chris Murphy did it. These new guys have too many false Gods to follow so will never do the brand justice. They dont get the quirky nature of the brand, the higher level of engineering involved, this knowledge takes years to aquire and the guys who used to do it here in NZ / Australia spent the years of loyal service to represent the brand as well as it could have been done here.
And I donāt think they understand Naim customers either, think weāre a strange bunch that probably know more about Naims catalog than they do.
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Doesnāt Australia use the same voltage as the UK? Iād be tempted to by Naim from a UK dealer or 2nd hand from the UK and get them shipped to Australia. We have authorised Naim repairs available.