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?
