Herald on Sunday editorial: Jersey ripoff bad look for adidas

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Opinion

To his credit, David Huggett, New Zealand's manager for global sportswear giant adidas, had the decency to look sheepish as he tried vainly to spin the massive local retail price of the new All Black jerseys.

He urged punters to spurn the opportunity to buy online at barely half the price, including shipping, from suppliers in the US and UK on the grounds that we should support New Zealand retailers, adding that adidas had made and was making "significant" investment in its stores here.

The second point is both irrelevant and faintly silly: the investment in store livery is scarcely an act of altruism (although it will presumably have provided a bit of work to a handful of tradespeople); it is a tax-deductible business expense designed simply to sell more adidas product.

In asking us to support local retail, however, he is being entirely disingenuous. The company is understood to have budgeted to sell 100,000 of the new jerseys. If all of those were to be bought at offshore prices, it could cost adidas something like $10 million.

That may be exercising Huggett's mind more than retailers' fortunes.

The enthusiasm with which New Zealanders have taken to cybershopping certainly has implications for our retailers, who must charge the GST and pay the import duties that online retailers avoid. The question of whether a consumer tax should apply to online sales is worth exploring but that is not the issue here.

RWC organisers have urged New Zealanders not to use the tournament as a price-gouging opportunity. For its major sponsor to be charging such a premium to local fans for its own team's kit - particularly at a time when the NZ dollar is so strong - is both a bad look and a bad business decision. Huggett's attempts to finesse it simply add insult to injury.

- Herald on Sunday editorial