Strummerboy Bill wrote:If nothing else, at least they got a few "mentions", and that won't hurt their feelings, I'm sure. 
Any publicity is good publicity ...
I've bought some smaller items from SweetWater, because the time/cost to ship from the US is almost the same as getting it from our East Coast!! But now our government have decided to slap GST on _every_ item bought from overseas - I can see myself looking harder at both local stores and Eastern States stores, although the cost of purchasing will probably include GST markup, so the only one who win are the government!! Previously items under $au1000 for personal use were tax-exempt.
We get the poor end of the stick down under; a couple of years ago I bought a PRS SE online from America for $us700 - can't remember the exact figure, but it came to about $au950 including postage from a USA online shop, in the local shops it was $au1400.
Today, (with the different excange rate) the guitar itself would come to $au985 + shipping, which would then push it into cost + shipping + GST + import tax + import tax assessment. By my calculations it would make it about $au1450.
Bleh ...