Patriotic gift shopping comes at a cost

Tow-along wooden duck: $16. Photo / Supplied

Would you pay $68 for hand-made chocolates because they are made in New Zealand?

It's the price you can pay for New Zealand-made goods if you're trying to be patriotic this Christmas. But you might also get better quality.

An 800g box of 52 hand-made chocolates from the Chocolate Boutique in Parnell is priced at $67.95, compared with two 400g boxes of German-made chocolates from The Warehouse Downtown at $23.98.

Chocolate Boutique staff member Christina Leital said the high price reflected the quality and the time in making the chocolates.

However, a snapshot sample of six items on getmade.net, a website set up as part of the Buy NZ Made Campaign in support of local retailers, shows imported goods aren't always cheaper than locally made.

A small wooden pull-along duck was $16 on the website, compared to a plastic pull-along dog, made in China, from The Warehouse for $22.99.

A small wooden photo frame at $39.90 was comparable to a range starting at $16.99 at The Warehouse - but the frames were shabby from having been left on the shelf.

Christchurch journalism student Sarah Marquet spent a year trying to survive solely on New Zealand-made goods. She told the Otago Daily Times buying exclusively New Zealand had been quite hard - particularly for a student on a tight budget.

Aside from not being able to find New Zealand-made versions of necessities such as batteries and light bulbs, she discovered New Zealand-made goods were often quite a lot more expensive than imported goods.

Her usual deodorant, for instance, cost $4 to $5 at the supermarket but "a ridiculous" $15 to freight from Auckland to Christchurch.

New Zealand-made shampoo cost $25 for 250ml and she considered it of poorer quality than her usual imported $5 variety.

It was so hard that she was forced to bend the rules.

"I decided pretty early on, especially with clothes and shoes and stuff, that second-hand was okay because the money's still going back to New Zealanders."

Asked why she did not hunt for bargain clothing from within New Zealand's own high-profile fashion industry, Ms Marquet said: "Oh, good luck. There are only really, really expensive ones.

"The cheapest thing on the sale rack the last time I went was $350 which is way out of a student budget."

Buy New Zealand Made spokeswoman Trina Snow agreed that New Zealand goods could be more expensive than overseas equivalents.

She puts that down to a reasonably high minimum wage compared to China and other countries and stiff labour laws.

Ms Snow said cost was also added by New Zealand's higher quality standards, which meant manufacturers could not deceive customers with rubbish.