Grey import business for small APOs and accessories?

[lowsfer]

Recently I sold my AT65Q and was amazed about how many people asked me about it and how eager they are to buy.

I have a friend who is an astro equipment retailer in China. So yesterday I talked to him about how poor astro equipment availability in Australia is and how high the equipments are priced at. We also discussed the possibility of grey import. It seems that even if 10% GST is paid for some more expensive equipments, the price is still much lower than Australian stock or import from Europe/US.

Regarding product quality, you know most of the non-high-end APOs available in the market are all made by Sharpstar/SkyRover/ExploreScientific, though maybe a different brand is printed on. Orion guide cameras are simply QHY with a different name.

Postage seems OK from China to Australia, though the opposite would be expensive. For small telescopes like AT/TS/sharpstar 65Q (3-4kg packed), ~$50 would do.

Beside APOs, we may also sell SkyRover ED binoculars, QHY cameras and accessories like flatenner, reducer, rings and adapters. I think a lower price than any Australian/European retailer can be guaranteed, typically by 25% - 50%. We will also beat US retailers, but probably not by such a high margin (but ~20% is possible).

Seems the only problem is warranty. The equipment has to be posted to China for warranty. I never purchased from TS/AT so don't know how they deal with this, but I think we need to cover the postage if it's a quality issue. In this case the cost has to be included in the price. So probably we may first try highly reliable products like small APOs, QHY guide cameras and some optical/mechanical accessories.

We don't really know how big the Australian amateur astronomical market is, so here's a survey:
Would you buy if Sharpstar 65Q quadruplet APO (same as TS/AT 65Q, no flattener required) is priced at 700 AUD excluding postage or 750 AUD posted to Australia?:)
Seems it's priced at 898 euro (1375 AUD) on TS and 599 USD (836AUD, pre-order only) on AT, both excluding postage/tax.

Any thoughts?:rolleyes:

[MortonH]

Can this question be widened to other models? Since you mentioned Sharpstar, what about the 90mm or 106mm?

[lowsfer]

Sure, I also talk about Sharpstar carbon fibre 90 and 107PH APO with my friend yesterday, and other ~4" APOs. We can also get 130/150 APOs by Sharpstar/Skyrover but those big ones are not in our first step.

[Wavytone]

The problem in Australia is

A) getting enough sales volume to make a shop sustainable, long term.

B) being able to make enough margin (profit) for the shop to survive.

Internet sales are killing retail shops because no-one wants to pay the margins associated with the above, especially in Australia where the sales turnover is relatively low meaning margins must be high to cover rent and paying staff a realistic wage.

The amateur astronomy market is only barely able to support 2-3 decent shops with full-time staff, and Bintel already has them.

A alternative is to have a another line of business and sell Astro stuff as a sideline, as does Andrews, though most businesses would prune out products that have low turnover an low margins and focus on whatever is in demand. Which isn't going to be Astro gear.

The last option is the small-timers who import and sell gear pretty much as a hobby, there are several...

[casstony]

Personally, the only way I'd consider running a business like this is if each telescope could be given a quick check to weed out the crap; check for obvious problems like wonky focusers and more importantly a quick star test (at ambient of course) to look for astigmatism and coma or strong spherical aberration and zones. Otherwise you'll get a headache dealing with returns.

[bojan]

So, it makes a lot of sense to establish on-line shop with low cost (but not cheap rubbbish) equipment :-)
For example, North group in Nanjing - they have a good stuff, prices are affordable but they are somewhat sluggish in their replies to enquiries..

I would certainly buy from them again.. prices in OZ (whatever the reasons) are unacceptably high, and not a lot of people could afford them.

[lowsfer]

Yes I agree. That's why there are so many grey import online shops in Australia.

But actually, we do not plan to directly compete with Bintel. Bintel sells some high-end APOs, but not many APO products from China like Sharpstar/Skyrover/ExploreScientific. We do not intend to sell high-end APOs at all cuz they are not cheaper in China.

So there's no much overlap. We intend to make new products available to Australian amateur astronomers rather than competing with those highly-reputed shops. We'll have a very limited range of products compared to Bintel.

I think a low-price but opticaly acceptable APO is the best choice for beginners and many casual amateurs. But these APOs are not available in Australia.

[lowsfer]

Yes, we'll definitely do that if the buyer allows us to open the original packaging. That avoids a lot of trouble for us and save us a lot of postage, too.:)

And that's also why we are currently only considering highly reliable products, not those fragile large APOs.

[lowsfer]

Sure, we will have a limited range of products, including only those well accepted models.:)

[dannat]

problem is most of the chinese will not take back/refund you for poor scopes..means you have to sell enough to cover bad returns--unless you are big enough to get an agreement form them [such as william optics] they will be to a certain standard, eg 1/4pv

[glend]

I bought an Explore Scientific ED80 Triplet from a US retailer on sale for something like $700 USD (admittedly when the exchange rate was much better) and it is a brilliant light scope, so in answer to your question - I buy from the place that can give me the best value for money. I buy ZWO ASI cameras directly from Sam at the ZWO shop online, because it's fast delivery direct and low cost. I buy fromTeleskop-Express in Germany for most of my imaging gear because they sell in Euros and the AUD has better value against the Euro than the USD on the last year. I have never had a warranty issue or reason to chase the supplier so I don't think it's an issue. Sadly, some agency arrangements in Australia prevent some goods from being sold into this market, SKywatcher is a good example - its sewed up tight by Tasco. I'd love to see someone break their hold on the market where they set the price. Good luck with your venture, plenty of people after bargains.

[LewisM]

I'd be interested in a Sharpstar 100Q if the price was well below the TS and Stellarvue horrendous prices, and the exporter can guarantee clean objective and good optics (seems the Chinese direct ones suffer from dirty objectives and often poor performing optics since TS and SV take the cream)

[lowsfer]

Sorry you had bad experience. But we intend to set up a long-term business. We'll check the optics before posting. We will also include additional cost for delivering the scope to manufacturer for warranty into the price, so we can cover the postage for warranty. We can refund if serious DOA problems happen, like Australian retailers do.

But on the other hand, to keep the price attractive and build a good reputation, we will probably only include very reliable models in our list, so warranty/refund issues happen less frequently.:)

[lowsfer]

Hi Glen,

Thanks for your feedback. That's encouraging for us :rofl:

Regarding skywatcher, if that is the case, we may need to check if SW prevents my friend to sell to oversea destinations, and if Australian custom would prevent such import. But we may first focus on products that are not available in Australia.

Regards,
Yao

[lowsfer]

Hey Lewis, it's you! :D Hope you like the two cameras.

Yeah, we expected this concern and will deal with that carefully if we decide to start the business.