Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen65
Actually the until-recent prices were almost exactly the same as OPT's factoring in the exchange rate at around 95 cents. USPS shipping for a single eyepiece is about $20, Bintel would buy in much larger volumes and have lower shipping costs so that's not going to be a major difference.
The main difference I suspect is that Bintel's prices have to include 10% extra for GST while OPT's do not include California's 7% sales tax.
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Think you'll find because of larger population in the USA and because there are many more compeditors to OPT and the like, that they will be operating on smaller margins than Bintel and mostly selling by mailorder all over. The GST here doesn't help either. I am not saying there is anything wrong with what they do (in the main), more compeditors to them would help drive down prices locally.
Here because there are a very small number of dealers and only one of two distributors , who essentially have monopolies , so the larger metro based companies can and do get away with a larger margin because we have no option but to buy locally in many cases (Meade, Celestron, Vixen, Tele Vue (?) etc) due the restrictions imposed on foreign dealers (who risk loosing their dealerships if they ship product here and get found out).
In my view , and has been for some time , that this policy is anticompedative. So much for the USA - Australia FTA.