Oceanic Members.

Team, just thinking ahead - how do you go about getting records, do you mostly go to record shops, or are you buying online? If you are shopping online, are you buying from the US or Europe, and do there tend to be many issues getting them shipped? I should be able to get stuff shipped to my dad here and then ship them over to Oz, but just wondering if there are any problems I need to consider.

All going well, I'll be in Melbourne early July, and out of quarantine 2 weeks later. My records and equipment should be over by September. I already have pre-orders being sent to a Melbourne address!
 
New stuff mostly Amazon for price I buy s/h locally, I’m in Brisbane, you have a good selection of shops in Melbourne, I guess once you settle in have a look round and see who caters to you style/categories. Enjoy!
 
Team, just thinking ahead - how do you go about getting records, do you mostly go to record shops, or are you buying online? If you are shopping online, are you buying from the US or Europe, and do there tend to be many issues getting them shipped? I should be able to get stuff shipped to my dad here and then ship them over to Oz, but just wondering if there are any problems I need to consider.

All going well, I'll be in Melbourne early July, and out of quarantine 2 weeks later. My records and equipment should be over by September. I already have pre-orders being sent to a Melbourne address!

That’s great to hear, mate. I was wondering what was happening with you coming over since the “unpleasantness”. Did you end up finding your own place or will you be with the in-laws for awhile?

@kafunis is right. We do have a lot of great stores but they tend to be concentrated in the inner city suburbs just north of the CBD. Places like Fitzroy, Collingwood, Brunswick and Carlton amongst some.

The only issue I had getting records here from overseas through is the tyranny of distance. It typically takes a couple of weeks for deliveries to arrive from most places. I had the rare album turn up in bad shape but most arrive well packed. The other issues I’ve found when ordering on Discogs is item “not available in your country”. That’s usually due to the seller not accounting for their settings so contact them directly. Factoring in 10% GST (VAT) on imports. This is done automatically with most online retailers based overseas but it does sting because it goes by the total cost including the shipping not just the value of the item.

Your dad might be the better bet on getting some things from the UK or Discogs.
 
That’s great to hear, mate. I was wondering what was happening with you coming over since the “unpleasantness”. Did you end up finding your own place or will you be with the in-laws for awhile?

@kafunis is right. We do have a lot of great stores but they tend to be concentrated in the inner city suburbs just north of the CBD. Places like Fitzroy, Collingwood, Brunswick and Carlton amongst some.

The only issue I had getting records here from overseas through is the tyranny of distance. It typically takes a couple of weeks for deliveries to arrive from most places. I had the rare album turn up in bad shape but most arrive well packed. The other issues I’ve found when ordering on Discogs is item “not available in your country”. That’s usually due to the seller not accounting for their settings so contact them directly. Factoring in 10% GST (VAT) on imports. This is done automatically with most online retailers based overseas but it does sting because it goes by the total cost including the shipping not just the value of the item.

Your dad might be the better bet on getting some things from the UK or Discogs.
Ah, wait, so have the GST rules changed? I thought they used to be on items over $1,000 or something? Have they dropped it right down?

Staying with the in-laws for the first wee bit, then we need to get somewhere. Not 100% sure on where we are going to look.
 
Ah, wait, so have the GST rules changed? I thought they used to be on items over $1,000 or something? Have they dropped it right down?

Staying with the in-laws for the first wee bit, then we need to get somewhere. Not 100% sure on where we are going to look.
Yep. They changed GST a couple of years back when they figured out that lots of people shopped online because things are so expensive here.

The government can’t miss out on their slice too so they changed it from applying GST to imported goods over $1000 to anything being imported.

Even given exchange rates and local taxes you probably notice that the cost of things locally are much more costly to buy here. Sorry. Some call it the “Australia Tax”. The inflated cost of goods just simply by being sold in Australia.

 
Oz squad, if any of you have any contacts in the government, can you ask them to change their international quotas after the 8th of July? Worst case scenario here is that our dog and stuff gets shipped out but we get stuck in the UK. Having sold our house. Fingers crossed we are OK, but it's hard to get excited about the move in case it doesn't happen...
 
So, the flight quotas have been halved, but after the 14th. We get in on the 9th, so we are hopefully OK. The only risk is that the airline cracks the shits and cancels all the flights. If that happens, apparently the government are putting on more repatriation flights into Darwin.

For now, we continue as normal.
 
So, the flight quotas have been halved, but after the 14th. We get in on the 9th, so we are hopefully OK. The only risk is that the airline cracks the shits and cancels all the flights. If that happens, apparently the government are putting on more repatriation flights into Darwin.

For now, we continue as normal.
I hope that you both get in safely and on schedule. Hopefully you don’t have to count on repatriation flights. Last year when the pandemic started to really take hold and repatriation flights started, Scotty from Marketing, our Prime Minister declared that everyone would be home by Christmas. There are still about 35,000 people overseas still trying to get home to Australia.

While we managed to avoid serious spread of COVID here, repatriation flights, quarantine and the role out of vaccinations over here has been a monumental clusterfuck. A massive portion of the country is in lockdown and because of all these dropped balls, which is what has lead to the halving of the flight quotas.

All the best with it. Keep us updated.
 
I hope that you both get in safely and on schedule. Hopefully you don’t have to count on repatriation flights. Last year when the pandemic started to really take hold and repatriation flights started, Scotty from Marketing, our Prime Minister declared that everyone would be home by Christmas. There are still about 35,000 people overseas still trying to get home to Australia.

While we managed to avoid serious spread of COVID here, repatriation flights, quarantine and the role out of vaccinations over here has been a monumental clusterfuck. A massive portion of the country is in lockdown and because of all these dropped balls, which is what has lead to the halving of the flight quotas.

All the best with it. Keep us updated.
So it seems like what they are doing is dropping the standard flights and increasing the repatriation flights into Darwin. We've registered with therefor that, so if this flight gets cancelled we can try with them. It's not ideal, but we'd take a flight to Woop Woop if we could...
 
Welcome to Melbourne, mate. Glad to see you got here Hopefully it was without too much fuss. You could do much worse, view wise. Good luck with the quarantine. Don’t kill each other.

When you’re out and settled we can catch up for a drink if you’d like. Waxflower is a small listening bar you should check out. You will love their loudspeakers. It might just give you a fix of vinyl while your stuff makes its way over.
 
Last edited:
Welcome to Melbourne, mate. Glad to see you got here Hopefully it was without too much fuss. You could do much worse, view wise. Good luck with the quarantine. Don’t kill each other.

When you’re out and settled we can catch up for a drink if you’d like. Waxflower is a small listening bar you should check out. You will love their loudspeakers. It might just give you a fix of vinyl while your stuff makes its way over.
The trip went ok actually. Having a total of 15 passengers on a flight from Singapore to Melbourne was a little strange, but all went well considering. Quarantine so far has been the traditional Australian mix of full-on rules based process mixed in with a friendly casualness!

A pint sounds like a good idea. Once I’m free we can get something sorted.
 
Back
Top