Quote:
Originally Posted by dbowie
To be fair to some suppliers in a lot of cases they too have become victims of this "globalisation" trend sometimes backed into a corner having to meet stringent distributors legal responsibilities and leave their passion and patriotism at home to pay wages and feed their families in a discerning marketplace. In the 2.5 yrs Ive been into this Ive seen some major changes in whats on offer its like a conveyor belt of exactly the same but different, bit sad really. it used to be diversify or die now it seems to be do what you have to to survive, although Ive mentioned products I think I might be heading off topic so ill leave my rant there, Im always up for some error/ fact check/ constructive critique, chrz Brenton..
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You make a good point Brenton and John Cross also made the point that specialty stores are disappearing. What John may have failed to realise is that this actually isn't a new phenomenon. Globalisation and the Internet may be playing a part in the demise of some specialty stores, I have no doubt, but it is far from new.
If you go back to the 50', 60's and 70's Sky and Telescope magazines and have a look at the plethora of companies that existed back then and look now and see how many still exist. A lot of them are no longer in existence. Many of these businesses met their demise long before the advent of the Internet.
The history of Western Australian astro stores is a case in point. Over many years there have been 5 stores, that I know of, that have fallen by the wayside, for one reason or another. The first telescope store I saw was in the 60's called John Vann in Perth city. I used to drool over the 4" Unitron that he had in the window. I could never afford it, as I was just a dirt poor kid. There was a 6th store, but this went from having a physical premise to an online business, so I don't count that.
In my studies for a BA we are covering creativity and innovation and the one thing that never seems to get raised is market saturation. Take TV's for example; according to ACMA there are 2.4 TV's per household in Australia, yet we continue to be bombarded with ads for TV's. I have two large screen TV's myself, and I live alone.
A few days ago I was reading CNET Australia and the news that one of the manufacturers has introduced an 8K television, yet 4K is yet to be broadcast in Australia. Companies continually push the boundaries and bring out more innovative products to keep us buying, because the market is saturated. The reality is, no one really needs a 4K television. It's mostly a gimmick to keep us buying.
This is the same with telescopes, how many people really want them? Of those wanting a telescope, how many actually have one, or two or three or four? I have five, two of which are not serviceable. The reality is that the astronomy market isn't that big, and that is a major reason that specialty stores come and go, the market is just not big enough to be sustained indefinitely.
It may come as a surprise to some, despite the fact that I won't deal with some stores, I sincerely hope they all survive, as that is good for our hobby.
Cheers Peter