I am never sure what all the fuss is about. If you are happy to put up with the hassles of buying overseas, then you are rewarded with better prices. If you can't wait, or don't want to deal with the international issues, then you have no chioce but to put up with the prices charged here.
Simple market forces. If you don't want to pay the prices, then don't. It's your money.
Davewaldo, you are indeed correct that I didn’t include GST, which will certainly increase the price; my original figure should realistically be $2310 (2100x1.10) for the LB16 at the current exchange rate.
Davewaldo, where did you get your information about where Meade products are shipped form? I am under the impression that Meade products are sourced directly from their factory in Asia. This information comes from Meade dealers in Australia that I have spoken to and it is often purported in online telescope forums. If anyone has definitive information to the contrary please inform all of us; it would certainly clear up what is otherwise a common misconception.
For anyone with the information, please also tell us all how the transport/shipping costs of Meade equipment from Asia to Australia are any different (more) than shipping a Meade product from Asia to the US? Remember the figure of US$1849 for the Lightbridge 16 in the US includes all transportation and importation costs (including local ground transport to the dealer). Why would this cost any more in Australia than it does in the US? Also included in the US price of US$1849 is warranty assistance, customer service before and during the sale and after sales service from the Meade distributer that the product is acquired from. This includes any theoretical salaries that are paid to staff at the local US dealer that assist with the sale or provide any after sale service to the consumer. There is an all inclusive margin factored in to the price of the product to cover these costs asociated with selling. There is also a dealer margin that is factored into the price as well. Why should Australians expect any different?
The preceding is what I do know and what I can intelligently speak about and rationalise as a consumer, I don’t however know how to price terms like “etc”, PeterM, which you have used twice to justify Australian pricing, just what are we all paying for when we buy a telescope with etc included in the price? The term “etc” could mean anything; it is totally unbounded! This is a part of the problem; there are people in the industry like you that expect consumers to be content with prices that dealers charge when terms that are beyond vague like etc are used to justify pricing. More transparency in pricing is key; if people knew what they were paying for and why they were paying it, there would be much fewer discussions here complaining about price.
Also, what is this “touchy feely” stuff that telescope dealers in Australia provide and how does it differ from the “advice” which you have also mentioned twice in your justification of Australian pricing. And how does this advice differ from the advice that local dealers in the US and every other country provide – how much of the price variation does this account for and why does it cost so much more than what is offered in other countries?
PeterM, I’m not sure what you mean when you say that local dealers provide assistance with products purchased elsewhere - usually overseas, you say. Based on my experience, anyone taking a telescope or any other piece of their faulty of equipment to a dealer to be fixed, that is not under the warranty of that dealer, will pay for it, and rightly so. When I was a beginner, a local astronomy store chard me $50 to collimate my reflecting telescope, so given the price I was charged for this basic task I am sure that if a dealer spent time working on anyone’s equipment that is not under their own dealer warranty it will cost the owner. I could be wrong on this point, but if I am, I have to ask; why should I pay more for someone else getting free assistance with their equipment without dealer warranty? This notion seems absurd; your saying that dealers charge their customers more for their products because they freely assist others that have purchased their products elsewhere! This is wrong.
PeterM, you also say that dealers give away equipment for raffles, indeed this is true, and a wonderful thing. However, vendors in the US and other countries do this also, so if everyone is doing this then why are Australian prices more than overseas prices as a result? If margins are tight in Australia and providing equipment for raffles means significantly increasing the price of goods sold to paying customers, why give away such expensive equipment, why not something a bit cheaper? Regarding raffles, if the cause is worthy, people will support it regardless of prizes, I know I do. Further, these “give aways” count as a tax deduction and supplying the equipment for raffles often benefits the vendor by creating vendor awareness; increasing sale volume.
The reason that a lot of people use the exchange rate as the basis of price comparison is because there really does not seem to be any additional cost to selling astronomy equipment here than there is in the US or UK or Canada (which all have prices that are largely consistent), so the converted US or UK or Canadian price plus GST is a convenient approximation as to what one might expect as being reasonable.
PeterM, you have used words “nonsense” and the term “no idea” to describe the contents of my last post and others like it, that’s fine that’s your opinion, but I feel consumers should be entitled to question the prices that they pay and should especially do so when there is vagueness or discrepancies that are apparent in product pricing.
Clearly there are people skimming my posts and not reading what I am actually saying and incorrectly inferring things about what I have said.
This is what I said in my second post for those that didn’t bother to read it and just skimmed …
If you read my 2nd post you will see that I said that I attribute the variation in Australian price to stock bought during times when the AUD is weak vs. when the AUD is strong. I read AS&T and on every dealer ad page it makes mention that prices may fluctuate due to exchange movements; therefore this seems to be a fair attribution as I noted in my 3rd post. That’s why I assume that some places are still selling the SW12 Flextube for over A$1700, while other places like Andrews are selling it for A$1199; older stock prices vs. newer stock prices. In my 2nd post I used the LB16 price for my example, and commented that it looks as if the price charged at present was for stock that was acquired some time ago; I came to this view especially since the prices have not changed in a while in spite of favourable AUD movements. I then explicitly said in my 2nd post that NEW shipments of product bought while the AUD is strong should not cost significantly more than what consumers pay in other parts of the world. I spelled out the reasons of why this is so in my 3rd post. That’s it, that my point; we should expect comparable prices to what others receive overseas for new stock received while the AUD is strong.
Glenluceskies, most nations and certainly the US, UK and Canada all pay a level of import duty on products received from overseas. Which is basically what I was saying in my 3rd post; Australia is not really unique.
Davewaldo, your argument that Meade products may come through an agent before arriving at local dealers may indeed be correct (I will readily admit that I don’t know that). But I would also imagine that it is the same for the US, UK and Canada, the products are imported by Meade or Meade agents before being sent to local dealers. Again Australia is not unique. In fact Meade is not unique in having intermediaries between the manafacturer and the dealer, in many cases SW products come through an agent as well; the SW agent in Australia is Tasco Australia, the Sky-watcher agent in the US is Sky-Watcher USA.
Adman, my comments are not about buying overseas, nor are they about paying or not paying the Australian price but about understanding why a NEW shipments of product would not cost less than older stock; refer to posts 8 and 9 and my comments above.
Adman, you may have offered some insight regarding prices with regard to sales volume.
To put it simply, in just about any business, the prices you charge are are trade-off between making money and pi$$ing people off.
If you charge too little you will have many customers, but make no money. If you charge too much, you will have few customers, and still make no money.
It is all about pi$$ing off just the right number of people.
One other, and very important factor when ordering telescopes or other delicate parts, is, if it arrives broken, or never arrives at all, then bad luck. All your money has just gone down the toilet.
So you NEED to insure your goods as well. So now the shipping went from $350 (Small scope worth $3000) for just shipping, to shipping and insurance $550 for the same item, etc.
I wrote this massive, long diatribe of almost 2000 words... thankfully, I hit the delete button, as I suspect it would have raised more questions than answers... so, I decided to do a little comparison of my own... (BTW: Love Adam's answer... )
Shipping @ U$4.73/cu ft bulk (rate chart, US transfer charter, 2009)
Bulk Insurance @ 3% of value.
Bulk shipping of 210 units per a single 40' container.
Disclaimer: Note that this is a Class 2 cost estimate with no contingency for shipping and insurance.
Interesting factoid: Shipping a 40' container across the Atlantic costs less then U$3000, but consumers get charged from U$8000-12000.
OICURMT, out of curiousity, why are you assuming a starting price of full one off retail $US each for a wholesale purchase of 210 identical items ?.
I've avoided jumping in but will add that the assumption that the "base" price for the USA and Australia is the same (or similar) is a huge assumption.
It is not unusual for "base pricing" on a number of items that I am familiar with to be higher (sometimes greatly) for the ROW (rest of world) compared to the USA.
Not just in price but also in terms...I am familiar with situations where US based dealers do not pay for stock until inventory is sold, where as ex-US distributors (wholesale, regional and dealer) must pay cash up front.
By all means feel free to buy overseas if you believe that it gives you more consumer value but don't denigrate on speculation that someone is making a "motsa" unfairly.
In my opinion, this oft repeated discussion topic is unproductive and can only create hard feelings...
To really bring some clarity to the futility let me suggest that instead of Astro Retailers that we consider that "plumbers" (doctors, lawyers, school teachers, food workers, farmers, mechanics etc.) in Australia charge too much and ripped me off when I lived there.
Now I am back in the USA I can see that plumbing (medical, legal, learning, food and automobile repair) is much less expensive here. All of the above service providers in Australia must be running a scam on everyone...
When I move back to Australia (some time in the future) I will share these "facts" with my local service providers, I am confident that it will be a successful approach to me getting a better price!
It is interesting to hear Andrews is going to sell Meade. My first thought was one of surprise, that Andrews would think it worth it. Does Meade really still have the market share worthy of Andrews being interested in them? Andrews being Andrews I’m sure they’ll aggressively undercut the competition, but I don’t take that as an indication of other local retailers over-charging us, and it’s not necessarily best long term for us consumers.
I think I get ripped off more by my supermarket every week than I do by any local astronomy retailer. And that’s every week. On basic living expenses.
Is Meade sold through an exclusive distributor for Australia? Just wondering because in areas nothing to do with Astronomy I have seen high local pricing due to a disti making juicy margins courtesy of effective monopoly status...
To really bring some clarity to the futility let me suggest that instead of Astro Retailers that we consider that "plumbers" (doctors, lawyers, school teachers, food workers, farmers, mechanics etc.) in Australia charge too much and ripped me off when I lived there.
Now I am back in the USA I can see that plumbing (medical, legal, learning, food and automobile repair) is much less expensive here. All of the above service providers in Australia must be running a scam on everyone...
When I move back to Australia (some time in the future) I will share these "facts" with my local service providers, I am confident that it will be a successful approach to me getting a better price!
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogerg
I think I get ripped off more by my supermarket every week than I do by any local astronomy retailer. And that’s every week. On basic living expenses.
To really bring some clarity to the futility let me suggest that instead of Astro Retailers that we consider that "plumbers" (doctors, lawyers, school teachers, food workers, farmers, mechanics etc.) in Australia charge too much and ripped me off when I lived there.
No comparison in that mix of professions. Teachers, food workers and farmers don't really get the opourtunity to rip people off. In contrast, our latest debt-fuelled real estate bubble has provided ample room for rip-offs in associated trades/professions.
Once my half-hour drain cleaning fee rose to $180 I purchased my own drain cleaning machine with 20 metres of cable for $540.
I'm not really bothered by the cost of astro-goods since they are luxury items; I don't have to buy them and there's currently a healthy amount of competition in the industry.
I've avoided jumping in but will add that the assumption that the "base" price for the USA and Australia is the same (or similar) is a huge assumption.
It is not unusual for "base pricing" on a number of items that I am familiar with to be higher (sometimes greatly) for the ROW (rest of world) compared to the USA.
Not just in price but also in terms...I am familiar with situations where US based dealers do not pay for stock until inventory is sold, where as ex-US distributors (wholesale, regional and dealer) must pay cash up front.
By all means feel free to buy overseas if you believe that it gives you more consumer value but don't denigrate on speculation that someone is making a "motsa" unfairly.
In my opinion, this oft repeated discussion topic is unproductive and can only create hard feelings...
To really bring some clarity to the futility let me suggest that instead of Astro Retailers that we consider that "plumbers" (doctors, lawyers, school teachers, food workers, farmers, mechanics etc.) in Australia charge too much and ripped me off when I lived there.
Now I am back in the USA I can see that plumbing (medical, legal, learning, food and automobile repair) is much less expensive here. All of the above service providers in Australia must be running a scam on everyone...
When I move back to Australia (some time in the future) I will share these "facts" with my local service providers, I am confident that it will be a successful approach to me getting a better price!
OICURMT, out of curiousity, why are you assuming a starting price of full one off retail $US each for a wholesale purchase of 210 identical items ?.
The exercise was not with respect to absolute costs, but relative costs. In particular, what an end consumer could achieve in the way of relative savings. I do admit (thus the "Classing" comment) that there is an inherent level of uncertainty over the entire process chain from source to sink.
I also recognize the "purchasing power" of the USA through "economies of scale", however, as a single source of product, delivered through a single source of branding, the absolute differences with respect to the overall wholesale price should be relatively minor. My rational? Part of my career deals with being able to cost on a global scale, taking into account FOREX, regional trends and commodity prices. In this particular exercise, I asked myself. "How much granularity is required in order to prove or dis-prove a point?" The answer, not much when viewed through the eyes of an end consumer. I didn't start the exercise to prove that thing were more expensive here due to inflated scathing pricing practices. I purposefully set the final target per advertised pricing and worked backward to a solution. The data I used is real, not made up. But as you pointed out, my flaw in the analysis is the retail angle.
Thus............. if you consider a "retailer" here in Australia buying from a "retailer" in the USA and then shipping a million dollars worth of product to Australia and then reselling at AUSTRALIAN retail prices, you can see that the Australian retailer still makes close to a 25% margin on the goods purchased OVER THE COUNTER in the USA. Thus, this exercise demonstrates the worse scenario for the retailer, not the best.
I hope this explanation was "clearer than mud", but somehow I feel I may not have been as articulate as I could have been.
OIC!
<Late Edit: I should state for the record that I do not consider a 25% profit margin to be excessive, considering the locked market that is Australia (read between the lines here)>
<Another Late Edit: I should also state that I've never actually shipped a single, individual container anywhere, except for personal effects. The quantities I've tended to deal with are much large in both volume and weight, thus, I can not *exactly* stand steadfast on my number without actually picking up the phone and making some inquiries>
I guess the upshort is that if you are happy for the service, convenience and customer service of buying through a dealer, then go for it. The consumer has a choice.
I see the Andrews has their price list on their site now:
ETX-80AT-TC BB 80mm f/5 Backpack package. $549.00
ETX-90AT 90mm f/13.8 Mak. has UHTC and PEC. $999.00 ETX-125 125mm f/15 Mak. has UHTC and PEC. $1399.00
LS, Lightswitch 6" f/10 ACF SCT w/GPS and UHTC. $2399.00 LS, Lightswitch 8" f/10 ACF SCT w/GPS and UHTC. $3099.00
Think you guys got it bad, try $28,800 NZD for a 16inch meade LX200r OTA. Consider they retail in the US for $10,000, it like WTF...
Do the math in NZD.
$2,600, Flights to LA for 2 return.
$14,000, OTA less sales tax (order going out of state)
$7,000, 2 week holiday with my wife tripping around the USA
$900, OTA to NZ, including insurance
$2,500 GST on import
16inch OTA costs $17,500 and for $29k we get a nice holiday. Frankly the agent here are a ripoff.
If broken in transit, DHL or however replace it. If broken by me, my insurance replace it via the NZ Agent.
So personally, I think Lee is doing us all a favour and the agency stuff is a load of cr....
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