Yeah, but I was just being facetious, Doc.  I could never be so arrogant, or greedy to think of such a ridiculous charge.

I'm a firm believer of acquiring only that which one is entitled to... and that would exclude payments from bogus charges.

Its not a bogus charge, IE7 is a mess and supporting it costs them extra.

I was actually referring to my own, tongue-in-cheek comment: re, charging sites for not being IE7 friendly.

Still, Kogan is a twenty something who became a multi-millionaire in like under 5 years, and I am sure he could absorb the very miniscule cost [in comparison to his income/bank balance] to show customers good faith... that even multi-millionaires are human and have a heart.  However, that was not the purpose of this exercise, regardless of how bad IE7 is.  No, given the very small number of Aussies using IE7, and that many of those are likely to never visit his site, it was more about the free publicity garnered worldwide.... I mean the majority of WWW users [even here in Oz] have progressed to the safer IE10 or Firefox 11, so why is it even relevant, much less news?

he doesn't have to support ie7. leave it broken for those with dodgy browsers with a massive banner saying they won't work would do the trick.

heck.. he can even do a multiple choice screen of "pick your browser" with the answer going on the receipt.

You have never been to a store that charges extra if you pay via credit card to recover the extra money it costs them to offer that service?

Or used a vending machine with credit card (again, costs extra).

Or paid a utility, school, or doctor bill with debit/bank draft rather then credit card due to it being less money (to recover their extra cost from credit acceptance)?

I wouldn't charge people for using IE7. Don't they suffer enough with the constant "Internet Explorer has stopped working" messages?

I knew that, mate. I only answered to make you laugh.

It's not illegal at all. The customer can choose not to purchase from the website thus negating the surcharge.

No, he doesn't, but then he could always implement a code barring access to IE7, with a short, simple message to users to upgrade should they wish to use the site's services... it would be the simplest, most cost effective way... without this IE7 tax bullshit publicity stunt.  Yes, publicity stunt! 

Rusian Kogan frequently goes on Australian TV to justify his own business practices or condemn other traders for theirs.  He regularly takes out full-page newspaper ads... not to advertise his wares, but to stick it to other traders [like JB Hi-Fi or Harvey Norman]  And this latest stunt is more of the same.

The cost of supporting IE7 isn't even peanuts, compared to his multi-million dollar annual income, so he could easily absorb the small cost involved and hardly notice a difference.  Like I said, it's free publicity. If the cost of supporting IE7 was effectively reducing his profit to any noticeable degree, and I say IF, which I very much doubt, he could simply add a half percent to his already heavily discounted prices and nobody would be the wiser... in other words, the mention of an IE7 tax IS totally unnecessary.

Yes, I've been to those stores, but I always pay cash for everything. I refuse to pay extra on my purchases to cover greedy bank charges, which is exactly what they are.  However, your analogy is not appropriate.  Those stores are recouping external charges levied upon them by banks, whereas Kogan isn't.  It is still HIS storefront... and HIS to maintain.  If he does not then customers may not access his wares and he goes broke... his choice.

In answer to the other questions... I do not have a credit card... despite my bank's repeated offers of one. The cost of operating a credit card would add hundreds [why the hell can't people see that] to my regular living expenses, and when it comes to money I'm as tight as a fish's arse... and that's watertight.

Kogan have said the surcharge is to recover cost of allowing ie7 users to buy goods. If a customer has to pay more for that access than another then it's price gouging. They have to give you a fair cost.

Not entirely.  The 'levy' does NOT match.  You are charged typically MORE by the store/service/co than the bank levies on that institution.

Any bank 'account' has charges/fees....a credit card need not be any more expensive to 'have' than any other account....particularly when it's 55 days Interest free and thus YOU can profit by NOT paying for 54 days....;)

Again, no.  'price gouging' is specifically what IKEA does.  They charge the maximum the market can put up with without them sourcing an alternative.

Kogan's IE7 customers have an alternative option to purchase at the 'normal' price.

IKEA customers do not.

It is patently ABSURD that a desk made in Asia....just off our coast can be shipped from there to the US and then purchased FROM the US and shipped to Australia for considerably LESS than the AUS IKEA store 5 minutes down the road.

In a global market sense Australian IKEA customers are SUBSIDISING US IKEA customers.

I trust America is appreciative....;p

The thing is, IE7 users will be charge different amounts of surcharge for cost recovery. A IE7 customer can argue that their surcharge of buying a product from Kogan should be the same as another IE7 customer. Kogan will have to justify why that customer has to pay more ...

Ah, yes....within the er... subset of 'Kogan-IE7 customers there's an apparent inequity as it's not a flat fee but a percentage.

He probably "should" make it a flat rate - fixed fee.

But....

On the other hand....were it TOO 'fair' it wouldn't attract all this free publicity.

Method in the madness....;p

From the OP.

Why should he charge a flat fee? Seems to me that would be objectionable for the buyer of a small ticket item. Not a "progressive" fee at all, doing it that way.

If he can soak someone who is too stubborn or (face it) stupid to upgrade a browser? Why is it even being discussed? If someone is too thick to upgrade a browser, and too thick to get to a mate whose computer has a more modern browser, let him pay the price.

As for IKEA? That really should be looked into. I bet IKEA is getting some sort of profit kickback from the shipper as well as from the Australian franchised operation.

My point was/is that there is an external cost with the credit card scenario... there isn't with Kogan's 'so-called' tax.  Of course stores will seek to profit from the bank charges by passing more on to the consumers, but then that wasn't my point.  Well not directly!  My point is that Kogan made a mountain out of a pathetic little molehill and used it as free publicity to increase his profit base from it.... given more people now know about his operation.  Saw him on 'Good Morning Australia' once, thought he was a slimy bastard, and this further enhances that opinion of him.

Quite right ... Perhaps I should not of said the ACCC will 'kick their arse', more likely to send a 'Who's a naughty boy' letter and a slap on the wrist.

Well....it's everyone ELSE making the mountain.

All Kogan did was impose a fee.....;p

Truth is, IKEA isn't the only company trying to extract the maximum it thinks the market can bear.  All companies are guilty of this, even Kogan, who heavily discounts his wares.  How can I say this about Kogan, a heavy discounter?  Because he researched, identified who he could exploit, and caters to his intended market... poor buggers who have eff all to begin with  He knows their purchasing options are very restricted [despite the we won't be beaten on price, Hardly Normal is still way out of their price range] so yes, he too has a captive market. He may have to share it with other discounters who have identified the and exploit same demographic, but he is still doing an IKEA.

Ah, but they do... they just have to think a little differently and they cease to be IKEA customers. My mother once bought some kitchen furniture from IKEA and thought she'd gotten a bargain... until I took her to a nearby store that sourced local products. Not only was the furniture cheaper, it also looked nicer... and there were no issues with compatibility or replacements, as there was with the IKEA kitchen setting.  Hence she became a former IKEA customer.  Me, I've never purchased from IKEA, never will.  I have 2 large furniture outlets nearby, both very competitive on price, and one has free delivery within 5k, which I am.

It is only one of many absurdities I've seen in the business/purchasing world.  For example, back when I was traveling between Queensland and Tassie, I could buy a Queensland brewed carton of 30 cans of Powers Bitter for $19.95 in Launceston, yet that same carton of Queensland brew would cost $29.95 here in Brisbane. And the same was true of Boags Bitter. I could get that up here for $24.95 for 24 stubbies, yet in Launceston it was usually around the $36.95 mark.  How stupid, a carton of beer can travel across 3 states and still be cheaper than its place of origin.  Well that was the case until Coles and Woolworths bought into the liquor trade... now its being sold at the maximum rate they think the various state beer drinkers will pay... no cheap interstate beer for anyone. 

Another absurdity is Tasmanian grown potatoes going to a Victorian plant to be processed, shipped back again and being sold for half the price of the same producers potatoes that were processed locally.  Same with my brother-in-law's sheep/lambs.... slaughtered in Tasmania, sent to Victoria for packaging, then sent back and sold by Woolies for cheaper prices than the local butcher could hope to match.  But that's always the way with Woolies and Coles, killing off the small businesses and stifling competition.

Yes, I'm very cynical when it comes to big business[men], but then I've been around the traps enough to have heard enough businessman's thoughts and ideas on how they could screw customers and/or the competition to have an informed opinion.  Like when a Woolworths store manager happily tried to send me around to a greengrocer's in the same shopping centre to compare prices to undercut him, and to a butcher's to do the same, I'm fully aware that the order actually came from above and it's a nationwide practice intended to wipe out nearby small businesses.  I refused and was threatened with the sack, which didn't happen, but I quit anyway because working there no longer appealed.

That was only one of numerous things I despised about the various big businessmen I've known, and from what I've seen they're all pretty much tarred with the same brush, so yeah, businessmen in general deserve my distaste and cynicism, and I won't apologise for it, either.

Although Brad isn't as bad as most business people.  As far as businessmen go, Brad is better than most.

Duly noted, but then I talking about an entirely different animal.  While Stardock may have a majority share of the 'customising' market, it is still a small business in the greater scheme of things. True, it may be bigger than most ma and pa businesses, but it is still a sardine in a sea of sharks.  The kind of animal I was referring to is more the corporate-type of mongrel who would steal his mother's purse and sell it back to her empty just to turn a profit, which funnily enough, is something I heard a former employer say... that he'd steal his mother's purse.  After he said that I had no respect toward him whatsoever and was soon working elsewhere.

I've worked for small family-type businesses where the owners have been the most decent, fair and honest people one would ever wish to meet, so yeah, I should have clarified that in the above post. 

People always have choices... they may not perceive them, or those people may be the products of privation... but it largely depends on the person going into the situation, I believe. If the person stops for a moment and perceives the situation and the choices, most elect to do the right thing, which isn't necessarily the profitable or exploitive one.

So much depends on what one knows is right and if one is strong enough to do what's right (or the greater right). It's easy for some (even many) to assume a synthetic identity to do something else and justify it with some situational system of norms. It's harder to remain true to what one knows deep inside is right and wrong (or a more fundamental right): The stuff one learned from parents and the stuff one learns in Kindergarten. In the end, so much depends on conscience.

Sadly, there are people, usually members of the corporate wheel, because it's driven into them at their induction to the firm, who see profit as their only reason to get up in the morning... and so you have all these corporate climbers ready to stab one another in the back [as well as anyone else who gets in the way] to get ahead. So no, we ordinary folk don't put profit before all else, but those who do were indoctrinated by the system they serve and love without question.  Yes, like it or not, there are former human beings who think this way, and I know first-hand because I've met some... people whose own mothers don't even like them for their lifestyles and business choices.

Yes, I've been talking about them for yonks [ages], those corporate/business world climbers who once knew right from wrong, but grew another set of values and see no reason whatsoever to justify anything to anyone.... and that, I'm sorry to say, is the situational norm.

Exactly, which is why those induction courses to corporations are so successful in training new recruits/applicants, because they show them just how much easier it it to exist without a conscience.  I know because I lasted just two days into one and realised that I would lose my very soul, the essence of who I really am if I continued. 

Some of the stuff they said we'd be expected to do made me sick to my stomach, and when it was revealed that we would often be sent out to sign people up to agreements they could not afford, I walked out in disgust.  When asked why I said it was because I could never work for a company that put profit before families being able to feed and clothe their children.  The response to that was even more sickening, that "when you live in the lap of luxury with boats, cars and holiday homes, that simply isn't a consideration." 

I'm not normally a violent man, but I so desperately wanted to punch that bastard in the mouth, if only to give him an inkling of what it's like to suffer.  Fortunately for him, me as well because he would have called the cops, I stuck to my non-violent manner and walked away, much wiser for the experience.  So yeah, it does depend on what your parents taught you, and for me it's about not compromising my values, those lessons my parents gave to me. 

So strong are my beliefs, I once got out of a truck about 180 miles from Sydney in the middle of the night and commenced to walk the rest of the way.  Why?  Because my then boss told me that he was going to "root one of the secretaries at the depot" we were heading to, that he had had multiple affair and sired several children behind his wife's back, and he was so blase about it, too, so I made him stop the truck and I got out in the middle of nowhere.  Luckily, another truck came along about 20 minutes later and dropped me off at the depot ahead of my boss.... and roughly 30 minutes after that I was hired by another contractor doing a similar Brisbane -Sydney run.

Yeah, I know, it was stupid to get out of a truck in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black of night, but at the time it was the better alternative.  Back then I had a very nasty temper, and when lost my non-violent ways would go right out the window, which would have been catastrophic for him.  Anyway, all's well that ends well, and I'm glad that age has mellowed me.