The GHA (Gift & Homewares Australia) with their Home & Giving fair conjointly with Reed Gifts Fairs present the August Melbourne Gifts & Homewares trade fairs, commencing from  Sat 2nd to Wed 6th August, simultaneously in two Melbourne venues.   The Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre remains the larger venue for this major retailer buying event, with addditional exhibitors now overflowing to the Showgrounds at Ascot Vale. The MEC is just 8 kilometres from the showgrounds venue and organisers will provide continuous FREE shuttle buses from both ends of the Melbourne Exhibition centre to and from the 2nd venue during the five days of fair. Retailers are recommended to allow 3 days to get around it all. For full details of this trade only event, see our Melbourne Gift Fair Information page.

If you wanted to make a purchase online and came across a new non-bank financial institution called Paypal that is processing financial transactions in Australia, you might read their web site and be satisfied that they have an Online Dispute Process to cover disputes between buyers and sellers.

Paypal’s service is offered by many internet vendors and despite the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s newly released draft ruling, is also the only method acceptable for Ebay purchases.

Paypal’s success for financial transactions is due to the inept nature of Australia’s very small number of licensed banks who are so fat from their cartel like attack on Australians for bank fees, that they have failed to offer competition sufficient to slow the Paypal expanse or stop them from operating in Australia and holding deposits without a banking licence.

It appears that despite their own hype, the so called Buyer Protection Program is not taken seriously by Paypal. A recent example of an Australian purchaser of an online product (a product that was never supplier or attempted to be supplied) by the online vendor, resulted in a complaint using Paypal’s Buyer Protection Program system. 

After initially getting a standard response that said because it was for a software purchase it was not protected under their system, the Purchaser went to great lengths to explain to them that they could at least ask the vendor why they had never supplied a download URL to the buyer or emailed the software or otherwise attempted to deliver the product. Also that since the vendor failed to respond appropriately when asked for supply of the product that they were possibly committing deliberate online fraud using Paypal’s Systems.

After many emails to Paypal through that system, including requests to refer the matter to a supervisor, that purchaser formed the view that, since Paypal failed to respond otherwise and since the vendor still offers Paypal to purchase the same product, that its seems that Paypal don’t care if this vendor uses their financial systems to commit online fraud, and dont care if cheated consumers complain.

The reality is if you deal with Paypal you are not dealing with a licensed bank. A bank in this country would have a lot to loose if it continually failed to investigate online fraud or failed to provide basic common sense protection for the consumer. The big question is why is any foreign company allowed to provide a banking account (holds funds on deposit and transfers funds electronically) in this country without holding a banking license.

If you have Paypal complaints you might be better off to take them to the ACCC because it seems Paypal dont want to hear them.

It has been reported in the news that a survey of consumers in 14 different countries about their feelings towards using mobile phone devices for shopping, making payments and banking found that Australians were among the most suspicious of the technology. Results indicated that around 50% of Australians surveyed though mobile transactions were not secure enough and that almost eighty per cent of Aussies would not use a mobile phone to shop or bank or pay bills.

Whilst the big global tech product manufacturers want to push neive teenagers into yet another technological marvel, how about someone ask if the results point to the obvious fact that it is because its much more convenient to use a PC or a laptop for comfortable and convenient online shopping. Another small issue might be that bandwidth on fixed lines is always going to be a lot cheaper?

The Sydney Showgrounds it set to become the main Exhibition Centre Space in Australia. Its exhibition space is set to double. A great benefit for Australian gifts & homewares trade fairs and gift fairs which have always stuggled to find sufficient exhibition floor space in the one location.
A plan to increase Sydney’s major international exhibition and event space proposes that Sydney Showground almost double its floorspace will make way for more local conventions and exhibitions, with construction scheduled to commence in just under 36 months time.

The plans, are the key recommendations of a report by the NSW Government Events Corporation’s John O’Neill, and part of a strategy aiming to ensure Sydney remains competitive in the international and national events markets. A report by the Tourism and Transport Forum and the Property Council Australia in February last year found that Sydney was already losing convention and exhibition sales equivalent to a Rugby World Cup event per annum.
Sydney Showground’s current Exhibition space would be almost doubled to 40,000 square meters. The addition would allow more domestic conventions and exhibitions. Whilst the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour would be re-developed to cater more for major international conventions.

The Royal Agricultural Society who manages the Sydney Showground site in Sydney Olympic Park, advise Sydney Showground already has  the expertise to host large-scale exhibitions, conventions and events, and currently host events such as AIMEX, Big Day Out and the GHA’s Home & Giving Fairs twice annully.

There is currently major development in progress at Sydney Olympic Park with two new hotels set to open during 2008, new food and entertainment locations and the CBA planning to re-locate around 4,000 staff to the Park over the next two years.