Recently I have been complaining about cost of makeup items in Australia.

Yes I complain, but I do have a reason.

I am looking to build a kit on small budget.

Majority brands I want, are to expensive. I have been shopping around. Yet majority companies slug you for shipping. It's not the cost of Australia, it's the cost of shipping from oversea's retailers I am complaining about.

Today I just wanted to give an insight into why we get charged a LOT for cosmetics in Australia.

We need to first think about the chain of progression of the product being made and how it gets to Australia.

Product Design

This will include how the product looks, feels, applies, colour range, graphic design etc. It will also include wages to the designers as well as prototype costs.

Formula Creation

This will include the many formula's that are created ready to be testing.

Testing

As sad as it is, this will either be tested on animals of humans :(

Cost of production 

which includes employee wages and income to company that produces it. An extra charge to support maintenance costs to the production line.

Freight back to warehouse 

this will include packing materials, employee wages

Company employee wages

This will be to, maintenance crews, office workers, social networking teams, numerous retail customer service teams.

Company Income

This will go towards advertising, maintenance of company growth, investments, and to have money away for company growth which may be a new store opening and an increase in wages, as well as planning for new product launches etc.

And here is the interesting part where prices double for Australians.

Wholesale Shipping to Australia

Customs Charges, Shipping Charges, Employee Wages, Cost of purchasing from previous warehouse, packing materials, transport on trucks etc.

Employee Wages in Australia

To pay for warehouse employee wages, maintenance staff wages, storage staff wages, retail customer service wages etc.

And if purchasing online

Online website developer wages, packaging material costs, freight costs etc.

And the money paid to Freight will pay our mail man's wages, Truck/boat transportation, etc.

That is where money adds up. Once our Australian Sectors buy these products, Like MAC Australia buys items off MAC America, the process will double again as well as paying for the items.

So Say America sells a lipstick for $20 and we import it to Australia. We will have:

$2 per item to go to Wholesale Import Costs

$10 per item go to pay for everyone's wages

$2 per item for company income to import more items

$4 per item to go to marketing and maintenance etc.

and that alone is already $18 added making it $38 to import and sell in Australia.

Plus Australia is one of the highest paying workers wages in Australia which is what really determines the price of products.

Yes it is a bit shit to buy all the nice things so expensively and "America is Cheaper"

But in reality we are paying for food to go into peoples mouths.

And at the end of the day, we are buying from America and a lot more than you think goes into our lipsticks to get this quality.

Hopefully this was not too confusing and helps with understanding it a bit easier.