I'm really annoyed cos everything that you can buy for poser is from america which mean i have to pay twice as much plus about $20 P+H. i figured out that micheal 2 would cost me about $70-80 which is rediculous. I want to get Mike 2 before the 18th so i can get stephanie too. I'll never get enough cash for it so i decided to rave about it instead to release my anger. Sorry for copping hat, i'm just annoyed

lots of spelling errors, sorry

If you purchase the "downloaded" version, you won't have to pay shipping. Sorry... can't think of anything to do about the money exchange rate.

I can sympathize with your feelings about buying overseas, though. There are many of us in America that would love to purchase videos, music, clothes, from other countries (England & Germany for me), but the cost is just as prohibitive.

Hang in there and don't let it get you too down. Remember downloading is cheaper than shipping, and in the end, it will be worth it.

Yeah like those freakin nice magazines like 3D world, etc...from the UK...a subscription is close to $200 even more...I think closer to $300, but if you live in the UK its like $140 or so..grrrrr. And there really isn't a comparable magazine. Waiting for my renerosity magazine though:)! Cheers, Brian

Problem is that you cannot download Poser4 or Pro pack. In the US Poser4 costs $219, but in the Netherlands I have to pay $319!!! For that price, do they fly it to the Netherlands with Concorde ? Pro Pack costs $199 in the US but $250 for the Netherlands...

Hmm, just saw that it costs just $250 for people from Germany. Why do germans pay $70 less???? (Last time I looked Germany wan't far from the Netherlands and certainly not closer to the USA)

i wasn't really thinking of the downloaded versions when i wrote this but i was thinking of getting a tablet but it turned out that i would've hade to pay more for shipping than i would have bought the tablet for, it's ridiculous.

Too bad you can't talk some local software company into becoming a distributor of your favorite software?

not many software companies around here, the town i live in is pretty small, only about 130,000 people. I will look into your idea tho sturk. Ta.

I bought some stuff from DAZ3D. The option with downloadable files rocks and the prices are fair. applause to daz3d. But I agree with pimpinwillye too because I tried to buy a poser 4 upgrade in the US and the S&H prices was keeping me back from ordering it! I have never seen that for a software package of $129 I'll have to pay an additional $74 (!) for S&H. Now I'll order it in the only shop is Switzerland selling it because it is much cheaper and the S&H is free too. Seravajan

mjtdevries, why don't you order it from germany? or buy it there, you'll spare taxes;)

I'm indeed considering ordering from Germany from now. Problem is that I first have to find a shop there that ships to the Netherlands. Do you happen to know one?

mjtdevries It this case buy Poser from the germany. If you live inside the EEC (Netherland I guess), you dont need to be care about the taxes whatever the country where you buy it from (except for delivery time and cost). So just compare the product price + the delivery time. I do it already between France, Belgium, Netherland, Luxembourg. I just remove the UK since their still use their old Pounds. In this case you can the add US as country shopping assuming 1EUR=1USD. But beware about the taxe. But it is very interessing for cd or DVD. Usually it is cheaper to buy pogram at local resseler that in US from the Internet. Guy

LOL. Poser Full version costs CHF 580 at the cheapest shop. That equals to about $345 while in the US it costs about $219. This is about 50% more in Switzerland! Poser upgrade: Basic $99 or $129 with magazine upgrade. In Switzerland in the cheapest shop I'll have to pay CHF 254 or in $151. Again about 50% more! Seravajan

Ordering from Germany makes the whole stuff more expensive! Most time Swiss people have to pay Euro times 2 in CHF. But the base exchange rates are 1 Euro to 1.5 CHF. Seravajan

mjtdevries, no, not right away. i think most of them do (it is afterall eu ;)), you'll maybe have to do some advance payment. have you tried e-bay?

There's no help for currency differences. Is it illegal to send someone in the US the price and have them ship it to you. Hmm a new business opportunity (which means it probably is illegal - darn governments anyway).

Australia, like the rest of the world, will be part of America soon enough.

Actually, I don't think it would be illegal to buy it and send it along to a buddy overseas, since you'd have to pay shipping anyway, and still overcome the exchange rate difference. Not sure, though, just that it seems weird that it would be made illegal to 'export' a single item to a friend, when you'd basically have to pay the same that the mfr. would pay to ship/exchange the same item, and in some cases, you'd pay even more since you're not shipping in bulk. The only laws I'm aware of concerning computer software has to do with cryptography; you can't ship 128-bit encryption stuff outside of North America, though 40-bit is okay. Also, you'd prolly have to check with Customs before shipping the real high-end machinery (basically, anything that isn't a home PC, and even then, check anyway.) An aside: As for Legume's statement, he's right, but for the wrong reasons, and with possibly the wrong outcome... the world will eventually have one government (it just makes sense to), but it'll be a long ways off, and I doubt if it'll be the US (or any current nation for that matter) running the show.

I think the worst deal I was offered was when I tried to get a replacement poser contents cd. CL wanted $15 for the cd, and another $35 to ship it. I am struggling along with the old worn out one.

i dont really mind.. i live in canada, and i can buy computer parts at 1/4 -1/3 the cost in the states. even with shipping and the exchange rate factored in, theres no way our local stores can compete. i live 2 min away from the US border (detroit) and i called a comp parts shop the other day and asked them the price on a processor. they quoted a price 4 times higher than the us price, i laughed and asked them how they could justify that, that it was so much cheaper in the us. they said 'well, thats the us'. great sales team, and a wonderful explanation as to why i should fork over my money, wouldnt you say? i always shop online, and order most of my electronics and other goods from the states. you guys really arent getting that bad of a deal, keep in mind that its not shipping costs but exchange rates that drive up the prices. $30 american is like $7000 canadian :( cheers, -gabriel

chohole if you have a really scratched up cd, then try reading it in a DVD rom, then re-burning it to another cd. youll need a comp with both a DVD and a CD-R, but this is a great way to revive old cds. DVD roms have several lasers that read the surface from angles and they tend to read through scratches where a cd player will skip.

About the scratched CD, we have a handy little machine that smoothes out cd's to make them usable again. We got it to repair Playstation 2 discs. It cost about $50 for the electric model (believe me you don't want the hand crank model) and we immediately got our value back by fixing $200 worth of playstion games to work again. You can find them in stores that sell PS2 games, especially the ones that sell used games. Should fix your content disc and then I would reburn it to a fresh disc. Take care of any othe discs as well. BTW, doesn't anyone have relatives in the US who could send you a gift?

Is there any way to obtain a charge card from a US bank and charge to it then have it sent to your address? I thought a pissed aussie was one with over 10 pints of beer in him!

In swiss are not the real exchange rates the problem but the general pushing high of prices in switzerland. We pay about 25% and more for magazines, food and so one than in germany. Only few properties are sold for a normal price. Seravajan

Attached Link: http://www.netbank.com

Bizarro: That too. LOL The main problem is that i am not yet old enough to get a credit card and have no money. I was thinking of asking my parents if they can get me mike 2 for a present but they'd probably say no. I'll try all the same. So much support, it's fantastic! All poser folks rock Mwahahahahaha

heck in new zealand it costs even more dollars than in australia, but maybe the "AUSSIE" is pi$$ed off because the kiwis beat the aussies in cricket, lol sorry pimpinwillye, i could not resist the last bit

You should try buying from WWF.com They charge $35 shipping to Australia for a single t-shirt! Which in the Australia dollar means I'm paying around $70 postage for a bloody t-shirt. That does not include the price of the actual shirt itself! The worst part being QUOTE "WWF does not plan on opening a franchise in Australia any time in the near future" UNQUOTE. Can you guess where I won't purchase from :)

I don't know about Australia and New Zealand, but in my case (Netherlands) the problem is not exchange rates but CL itself. I don't mind the exchange rates at all. But go to their webstore and take a look at the different prices with different countries: Germany: Poser4 costs 290 Euro which is about $250. Netherlands: Poser4 costs 360 Euro which is about $310 Zimbabwe: Poser4 costs $250. US: $219 Does CL dislike people from the Netherlands?

It looks they dislike people from Switzerland: Prices from CL-Shop for poser 4 in Switzerland: CHF 605 = $360! And then add S&H! Who bids more? BTW: I noticed that CL is owned by a german company labeled EGISYS AG. I think I'll write them about that rip off. Seravajan

etep: pure luck, i'm still annoyed that they dropped both the waugh boys! xena: Thanx for the warning, i was gonna get the HHH b-ball jersey until you told me that, and good to see more aussies around the 'rosity forums, i thought i'd never find another one.

There are tons of us Aussies hanging around here s We are slowly taking over .. but shhhhh don't tell the Americans wink And what you need to do with WWF stuff is find someone in the States you trust. Send them the money and get them to buy the shirt and post it to you - instead of WWF sending it. Postage on a t-shirt I've just recently found out is only about $5-10 US.

LOL! I got an answer from EGISYS AG in Germany. It is true that Curious Labs is a full daughter company of EGISYS AG. And they told me that there is no nation with the same price. That's right but not that similar nations have so different prices! Seravajan

I wonder how you can laugh at that answer.... ;-) But I have some good news: I spend a lot of time today searching for reasonable prices in germany. I found two: http://www.computeruniverse.net/default.asp They only have Poser4 and not Pro pack. But Poser4 is listed at only 199 !! (not on stock and still lists metacreations as manufacturer, but apparantly it has been quite cheap once. Did mail them whether they could still deliver for that price, but I doubt it very much) But through the egisys site I found http://www.steckenborn.de They have Poser4 for 259 ($224)bruto and 224 netto Poser Pro Pack for 219 ($188) bruto and 189 netto Those prices are very good. Especially Pro pack. The german versions are even on stock. Shipping fees are also very reasonable. 7,42 to the Netherlands is actually lower then most online shops in the Netherlands charge for delivery within the Netherlands. Marc

I ordered Poser 4 update in a bookshop (!) because they have the lowest price on this (About 165 ) in switzerland and S&H is included. Seravajan

heyas; well, this is no help, but.... you guys need to sell stuff. ;) sell something nice for ten or twenty american bucks, and you get twenty-forty aussie bucks.

The international pricing on Poser and Pro Pack isn't driven or set by Curious Labs. We sell to every distributor, in every nation, at roughly the same price. They in turn, mark up the product as they see fit. We respond, by pricing product on our webstore at a price which generally gives your local resellers a reasonable price advantage. This enables us to grow your local distributors and resellers as partners, rather than undercutting them. Ultimately, market by market, the resellers in your country determine how much margin they need to make on Poser and that determines what the best price will be. Regarding shipping, which I agree can be very expensive, we're limited to who we can use to ship your product by a few factors. 1. Our US based fulfillment facility only uses UPS and UPS only ships internationally via a few expensive options. 2. Our Dublin based fulfillment facility can save money for European customers, but due to contractual issues, they can't participate in every program we run. An example? The Poser Covermount CD upgrade, it isn't available through Dublin, we're trying to change that- keep your fingers crossed... 3. Our Dublin facility can't sell any product into the UK due to contractual commitments with Computers Unlimited, who does run the covermount CD upgrade, but at a price they choose. I'm sorry if it seems as though we are penalizing overseas customers. We are trying to push our fulfillment facilities into using different shipping options that create a tracking record and cost less for international non-US service, and we are trying to open up more distributors in local regions to get local businesses reselling Poser direct from their shelves. Unfortunately, we're a small publisher and don't have the international infrastructure that we would like to. We're still working towards that goal. Heck, we'd rather see you be able to put money in the pockets of DAZ or artists here than a shipping company, but delivering product around the world, whether its sold from the US or sold from your local computershop can be an expensive proposition. And what ul;timately allows us to build a netwrok of international partners is by proving that we can be good partners for your local software resellers. Sincerely, Steve Cooper Curious Labs

I hope you get that Dublin thingy sorted, cos I have a son working and resident in Dublin, that could be a good shortcut for me.

I Guess it must be difficult for small publisher to try to find the best solutions: - Do you want to make your customers happy, or the resellers? - How much sales do you loose when your overseas costumers have to pay 50% more? How does that compare with the advantage of having local resellers? What I have heard (from other software developers), it seems that creating an international infrastructure is extremely difficult with resellers ripping everybody off. Both costumers and publishers. I know of some companies that decided not to bother with resellers at all. They only sell through their online shop. They ship to any country in the world for just $10. (Europe for $7)Delivery time can be 4 to 5 weeks. But I'd rather wait that long, than pay $100 extra, for something which is just a hobby. BTW which programs does Dublin participate in? I don't see any reference to that on curiouslabs.com Marc

I see, my emails to CL and their mother company about these prices begins to bearing fruits! :) The most serious problem in switzerland is that we have no reseller of CL products. All CL products have to be imported from Germany. The only shops selling CL products in switzerland are offsprings of german shops. As mentioned above I got the full version of Poser 3 and was trying to get the magazine upgrade offer for $129 = CHF 215 which is a fair price considering that I got Poser 3 Full for an apple and a bread. After considering the high S&H I tried to get Poser 4 upgrade in my own country with the result that I have to pay CHF 40 more but at least I was saving money on the S&H and it is in my native language.. I hope the update will work with my magazine version. Seravajan