I'll have to remember to get up early to take advantage of the pre-caffeinated prices before they wake up and realise there are profits to be made.
FYI - "Live pricing is not indicated on the website. When placing an order online it will create a notification for my head office to contact you with the live pricing. Today's price is AU$44.00 for the 1oz PM Coins. I only have a small number of 2011 koalas left and two rolls of 2010 kookas (being sold at $38 per coin - $760 per roll). We are only selling the 2010 kookas as a roll, not individually."
The Downies shop in Melbourne want you to pay cash for bullion. No credit card payments allowed for bullion coins.
I just received my email after ordering them at 35. Due to the change in daily prices, todays price for the 1oz Koala is $44.16 + postage. I'll give em a miss this time. And, they've still got $35 on their website. I think it's a job for Consumer Affairs to correct their misleading advertising.
I've had an email banter back and forth with them this morning. Chelsea is her name. The fact that they're still advertising at $35, but emailing $41 is surely not legal. Regardless of the "price subject to change" line. I don't think that's fair under consumer law here in australia. I informed her of the negative reviews their site is receiving in forums, and to expect a youtube video soon. And, asked why not advertise them for $1.00, increase website traffic and perhaps get a few extra conversions.
I just checked my home email. My reply from her contained no banter. Just a new price of $44.19 (up from $44.16 from yesterdays email) and a quote of the disclaimer on the product page. My reply was to cancel, and repeat my suggestion of a POA price.
Rather than picking on Downie's which can very occasionally be the source of reasonably priced items, why not save our energies for the likes of NevadaCasinoSnob from ebay (Not his real User ID) who are much more deliberate in their skullduggery. I'm not too adverse to having indicative pricing on a web-site. Although that said, it wouldn't be too hard for them to have the price update automatically. Anyone from Downie's reading this and wants such functionality, there are a number of forum members who could show you how to do it! Ck.
G'day SS, Yesterday, I ordered 20 kooks at $35 each as per their website. They were nice enough to contact me via email this morning with current pricing. I kindly declined the offer. Hypothetically: If the price had dropped would I have been contacted ??? Cheers Ro
It couldnt be THAT hard to setup a flucuating price. spot price + % margin and have it update automatically every 24h.
I'm sure if spot crashed well below $35 they would make sure your transaction at $35 went through! - shame it doesn't work in reverse. I would avoid Downies at all cost. Fraud with a disclaimer.
Hello Everyone, Second time at first post - other one vanished into thin air! To cut it short - went through the same process as others with Downies and got same response. Told them what I thought and cancelled order. However, I also had ordered some philharmonicas for $37 and they claimed these also were subject to change. I went back and checked - there was no disclaimer under that listing like there was for the Koala and Kooks. I followed up and pointed out the lack of disclaimer and suggested they might like to honour that price. Not surprisingly I got no reply. However they have now updated it to $45 and put in a disclaimer. Koala still says $35. I'm annoyed that I didn't post this yesterday when because when I checked then it was still a low price. I was hoping someone else could put it to the test. Sorry!
Brief experience of the downies shopfront two weeks ago nice folk I wonder if prices are marked at the time of their purchase, with a certain margin in mind The first time I went in there a month ago, the prices were too high for my fiat At that point, silver fifties were 11.80 or 11.75 a piece, which was 2 dollars more than a shop out of town I went to the shop out of town. An hour's travel led to a lot more silver. Downies have a nice splash of florins in the display case as you walk in, but at 15 a piece. 5 months ago, I got these at 7.50 at a local competitor. 15 is becomng more attractive, but there is a way to go, before they will move. In retrospect, I wonder if their business model is not based on turnover, and if they lowered their prices a tad, then they'd get the stackers in there in droves, bringing in the business. I bought some items at a very inflated markup, but they were semi-numismatic and I craved them when I saw them. My experience is that they are not the cheapest in town, but they have items you want. The reason those items are there, in my view, is that the markup is a bit above what would be reasonably expected (at least for me, based on experience and spot). It does seem that they allow "bracket creep", such that as the spot increases, they don't increase their margin on all items in tandem with spot. That is good, otherwise it would be like the proverbial carrot dangled in front of the donkey. Unobtainable. I think they've worked out their happy medium. But I still wonder if they dropped the premium a little, they'd more than make it up in turnover. Just my 2 jiao.
Got to remember that Downies is primarily a numismatics dealer - bullion is probably only a tiny part of their overall business.
Fair enough. Though, anyone who trawls the CBD businesses knows the relative premiums. Downies are amongst the few open on the weekend. To my knowledge there are three. (Four if your include Shums in Chinatown). The main three are numismatic primarily. Shums is a essentially a jeweller. Markup is beyond my wallet, though the items are far more exotic. As for the others, the basic problem is that the cheapest is nearly always out now, at least in the last four months. The other, at least on the weekends, has had a "back in 10 minutes" sign on the door, each time I went, on my fortnightly visit. He was longer than 10 minutes. Downies has the bullion, on the other hand. But you will pay the Downies price. That is why it is still there.
For any collector of 1/10 ounce gold, Shums has a few 2000 dragons, and a few others in the series. But 200 is what you will pay, at least 2 weeks ago.
