Investing in Precious Metals in Australia

There is one little dealer you missed who sells over the counter and online, I think they call themselves the Perth Mint :P
 
bron suchecki said:
There is one little dealer you missed who sells over the counter and online, I think they call themselves the Perth Mint :P

Who
Where
Never heard of them ,not even when we went over to Perth for the Dragon release :lol:
:D
 
bron suchecki said:
There is one little dealer you missed who sells over the counter and online, I think they call themselves the Perth Mint :P

As you probably noted, he didn't really miss you, because his shops actually sell Perth Mint products. Its because Perth Mint is in a different class, similar to my comment about APMEX type dealerships. And as some SS posters have mentioned recently, there has been a spate of new "dealers" springing up recently on SS. A lot of these new dealers don't have websites (yet), but it wouldn't be difficult to set one up.
 
Torgny Persson said:
There seems to be limited competition in regards to PM dealers in Australia for markets of comparative size. It also seems that fewer Australians have discovered precious metals as an alternative asset group to more conventional investments since the housing market and share market so far has been performing relatively well in Australia in comparison to other countries.

It might look like limited competition from a European perspective, but there is no cultural awareness of gold in Australia and it will be a long time IMO before the average Australian gives up their obsession with property (and shares to a lesser extent) and even start thinking about gold.
 
Thank you for all the responses so far! I am truly humbled by the willingness to help answer and comment the the questions and thoughts I have. The Australian friendliness and social culture is indeed one of the reasons why I am considering business and perhaps even migrating to Australia.

rick_au said:
For me I don't really care about a the website looks. So long as its reliable. Most people on the this forum probably would share a similar opinion; at the end of the day its the bullion that we are after. Its when PM starts going more mainstream that aesthetics would play a major part. I have bought online from ABC Sydney, Bullion Bourse and Bullion Money; as far as I now orders can be placed 24/7. Currently I think bullion dealers in Australia are offering a satisfactory service to the current niche market.

Thank you for sharing your opinion on that most people are interested in a reliable business rather than the looks of a website. Isn't however reliability partly built by having a modern user-friendly website with online 24/7 trading without bugs but with prices connected proportionally to the spot-price? I can only talk for libertysilver.se but when we upgraded to our new website and administration system about two years ago, it not only limited manual work and automated things but also build trust, reliability and security since the order process can be followed closely step by step by the customer and so on.

sconejon said:
must mention the best bullion dealers in Australia. Gold Stackers of cause. Setting the standards to high for others to reach.
(do i get an ounce? :P )

I'm sorry I overlooked Goldstackers. No need to be weary, just an honest mistake. I try to be open in nature which is the reason I posted in the first place. No need to play too many games when the PM market is in such an early phase still. I know I have seen the goldstackers site but must have missed it in my summary. Is Goldstackers connected to this forum? Same owners? By the way, is this forum ran as a company or on a hobby basis? It's a bit early but if I would decide to move forward in any way, I would certainly make sure to become a sponsor since I like the forum!

At the moment I think there is only so much bullion dealers can do to promote their product. In order to engage the mass market so to speak there really has to be a cultural change. The culture in Australia of buying everything on credit and paying later is totally different to what many of people on this website preach(wealth preservation through PM investment).

Agreed. Very similar to e.g. Norway and Sweden where the housing bubbles are still relatively intackt. "It's different here....", "We have a smaller deficit", "More exports bla bla" In reality we're still locked in in the same fiat-money system whether we are in Australia, Sweden, Grecce or the US. It just that it might take slightly longer for everything to dismantle in some countries but that is sometimes because the bubble is even more inflated and artifically upheld by injections in those countries.

1: Buyers of lesser known bullion brands have experienced difficulties when trying to unload them. Easy to buy, not so easy to sell.
2: 24/7 shops whose prices do not genuinely reflect spot + fixed % lose all credibility - forever (for me anyway); viz. if you say you are 24/7, and the price crashed by 50% in the middle of the night, then your bullion shop had better remain open, selling at 50% of the price.
3: Prefer to personally pick up my bullion. However, offer a top-notch service, and insured mail delivery would be fine.
But what would really make your shop *great* for me, would be to offer a service similar to APMEX, selling both bullion & numismatics. This would make you stand out as a market leader in Australia, if you can offer similar prices with low % markups. Otherwise, honestly, you're just another bullion dealer trying to eke out a slice of the pie for yourself. Good luck, but you would not stand out as someone special. APMEX is special. You may have noticed that regular orders are placed to APMEX from people here, often bulk orders, and individual. I'm also going to be placing my first APMEX order soon, for some uncommon gold coins (not bullion). If you were here in Australia, with similar prices, I'd come straight to you instead.

I agree that a good dealer should list automatically updated prices for when people sell. Libertysilver.se does just that and customers can always place a sell order to lock in the price on the website.

Apmex has a good trading system but arguably ours is at least at par with them. Apmex of course has good capital resources making it possible for them to offer a wide range of products but if you look under gold coins at libertysilver.se we also have a decent supply. However many of those coins are old European gold coins which would be subject to GST in Australia but I can't really see why a dealer shouldn't be able to market them since they are taxed with GST in accordance to the margin scheme of taxation. The question is if the margin scheme can be used for products bought abroad either from abroad companies or private individuals. Do anyone know?

The market is flooded with dealers & gold buyers .
Do your own research on here

Well, how many percentages of total Australian investment goes towards PM? 1%? 0.1%? What's the ration of PM dealers to real estate agents? What's the ration of shops accepting PM to shops accepting fiat? Well, without being to ironic, I personally think that this is still early days.Unbacked fiat-money has never survived more than a few decades over the run of thousands of years and we are now in the longest run of unbacked fiat ever because the bubbles (fiat, property and all things paper) are more inflated than ever.

You will find that the Australia Embassy in Sweden will be more than happy to assist you.
Klarabergsviadukten 63, 8th Floor, Stockholm - Telephone: +46 (0)8 613 2900 - Fax: +46 (0)8 613 2982

Can you expand on that? Send me an e-mail to tp@libertysilver.se if you have any good contacts there or can/want to assist in any way!
 
Should the CEO of a company be asking about the regulations on a public forum? You have some fundamentals to figure out before you start bagging our websites.
 
Spode said:
Should the CEO of a company be asking about the regulations on a public forum? You have some fundamentals to figure out before you start bagging our websites.

Don't see why not. Such is the nature of the internet. There's always people who are willing to assist and others who begrudge those seeking help in public internet forums.
 
Nothing wrong with asking. What I mean is that you would expect the basics of the business to be figured out before the marketing front end is looked at. And I would expect a CEO to get some official advice on regulatory matters and not ask in a place where you never know what you get.
 
Spode said:
Nothing wrong with asking. What I mean is that you would expect the basics of the business to be figured out before the marketing front end is looked at. And I would expect a CEO to get some official advice on regulatory matters and not ask in a place where you never know what you get.

True. However, his initial question appeared to be just eliciting opinions on market saturation/opportunities. Undoubtedly, if Torgny thinks it would be sufficiently profitable he'll be speaking to the appropriate regulatory authorities in due course.
 
Ever heard of "testing the waters"?

I think to a large extent, Torgny is dipping his toe into this predominantly Australian forum, to guage opinion (and of course gather information).

At the same time, he has got some on the forum to question the respective credibility of various larger Australian PM dealers.

Not sure why some respondants feel the need to have a go at him though. It's all business. I don't feel any patriotic need to support or backup any Australian based dealers who are really only trying to make a quick dollar profit out of me like any other dealer in the world. If this Swedish fellow sets up a line of business easily accessable to Australian buyers, and his services/prices are better than local, I'll surely buy from him.
 
Spode said:
Should the CEO of a company be asking about the regulations on a public forum? You have some fundamentals to figure out before you start bagging our websites.

?????

I gather you mean "Australian websites"?
 
ddevil said:

Ha ha... this is your first ever post on SS. :D

Now, did you want Torgny to know about this website, or were you more concerned about the larger SS audience not knowing about this one?

Roll up roll up folks, now is the time for posting all the other obscure bullion dealer websites here. Don't miss out. Don't be late.
 
www.fishgutsbullionwithshineyposingnaked.com.au

ps. That's a fake link if it wasn't obvious... :P

On-topic: I think that the way a bullion company presents itself online through the website is very important but not important enough for me to flock to them. What I mean is that even if the website is fantastic it depends entirely on their prices as well as customer service as to whether or not I buy from them.

A company with variety like APMEX would be welcome in Australia. Currently bullionclub and bullionmoney do a nice variety of stuff including Pandas, AGEs etc.

The cost of running a business in Australia is high though so if you had the capital to build an APMEX-style (& size) business you would not do it here (GST/labor costs/regulation costs etc).
 
Black_Sun said:
ddevil said:

Ha ha... this is your first ever post on SS. :D

Now, did you want Torgny to know about this website, or were you more concerned about the larger SS audience not knowing about this one?

Roll up roll up folks, now is the time for posting all the other obscure bullion dealer websites here. Don't miss out. Don't be late.

Could only be one of the employees :rolleyes:
 
Purchase from city gold bullion all the time. Never experienced bad service and quick delivery. In my opinion best bullion dealer and prices in adelaide. Have not been able to find better place once you include shipping. I think we have enough dealers. But anything that raises the profile is good
 
Spode wrote:
Should the CEO of a company be asking about the regulations on a public forum? You have some fundamentals to figure out before you start bagging our websites.
Don't see why not. Such is the nature of the internet. There's always people who are willing to assist and others who begrudge those seeking help in public internet forums.

I don't understand the attitude of CEO:s not interacting with people and pretending to be something they are not while sitting in their room and looking important. Judging from the friendly feedback in this thread, I believe this is just the perfect place to start when investigating PM:s in Australia. I am not to interested in discussing personal stuff and whether in would be patriotic or not to buy from an Australian company started by a foreigner but I can tell you that I am probably more true blue than I am Swedish when it comes things like that :-) I watch AFL (even played a bit), went up 5 am to watch Aus beat South Africa in the Rugby world cup, been to Aus 5 times and discovered Pure Blonde on my last visit which I am trying to figure out how to import to Sweden.

Anyways, I'm starting to get a feel for the different PM companies but do anyone know if it is possible to find annual reports for the different companies? Is that public information in Australia?

Another question I am interested in is the logistics. How do companies ship PM? Are courier services used? Do Australia Post have any convenient shipping method with insurance included?
 
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