I've had full size stage amps shipped to Australia for less than that, and been buying statues for closing in on two decades, so I've had plenty of experience of how much things should be expected to cost, based on size and weight and we're they are coming from, and how they are being shipped. ARH's shipping costs to Australia are a bit ridiculous compared to, well, pretty much everyone else. It's why if I can't buy through a third party (like Sideshow, or a retailer, both of whose shipping is always far cheaper for the same product) I skip ARH stuff completely. For a quick, modern comparison, I got Fury of the Beast delivered to Australia by Sideshow for $136, and that had the biggest box of any statue I have ever purchased in all my years of collecting.
This isn't meant as a slam, by the way. Truth is, depending on just how active their customer base is in Australia, they may not see it as worthwhile to invest the time and effort in getting better shipping costs for us down here, that's their call, and without knowing their business I wouldn't presume to tell them how they should run things. But that said, it is the single biggest reason that I personally chose not to do any business with them directly. And I don't imagine I'm the only one.
Lucky for me that so far there hasn't been a lot of ARH stuff that I really wanted, but that might well change soon, depending on how some of these pieces turn out. But even then, I'll likely be sticking to third parties to order any ARH stuff through because I can get much cheaper shipping dealing elsewhere. Ex's are nice and all, but few are worth anywhere near the kind of significant savings I can make by ordering elsewhere.
Just my view.
