[mic_m (Michael)]

I think a lot of good points have been made in this thread about the price of the Orion dobs. The things that stand out for me as contributing to the cost from what others have said here are the following:

- Lack of domestic competition
- Lack of economies of scale in shipping costs
- The Orion dobs travel to the US before coming to Australia, whereas other budget dobs ship directly form their manufacturer in Asia.
- Possible third party (intermediary) involvement between Orion and their Australian domestic retailers.

The cumulative effect of these factors, I imagine, leads to the high price of these scopes in Australia.

I thought that I would add that it is interesting that Orion spends money advertising the XX12 in AS&T which implies that they want them to sell well over here; however, I think that they really need to find a way to reduce the price if they want these scopes to have a chance against their competitors in Australia.