Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b89429c566825f6ab32bcafbada449c9.jpg

Brian Cox syndrome! Retailers gone off the grid!


Specman

Recommended Posts

As per last years Stargazing Live I see that our favorite retailers are suddenly unobtainable, don't respond promptly to enquiries or even answer their phone! Its frustrating!

You would think after last year they would be better prepared. Pick up the phone guys! Your losing money!!

with 3.5 million unemployed surely your not short of your pick of staff to handle enquiries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 57
  • Created
  • Last Reply
looking at the time and date of the op`s post maybe he tried contacting at weekend, a good few of the astro suppliers have the weekend off

I never tried calling at the weekend...

I run an e-commerce site myself so I understand the problems.

I'm just frustrated that's all, I'll get over it. It's not the first time I have had problems with this supplier, seem's every time I want something they are too busy to serve me. :)

Don't worry I'll get over it. Just the down side to Brian Cox! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I won the lottery, I would trust FLO with the £1,000,000 order I would place!!

When I got into this hobby it came as a bit of a shock to me that some retailers couldn't be reached by phone easily!

My two cents now is that I can imagine that someone new to this incredible hobby could have a *lot* of questions! Sheesh, look at the many complex questions here on the forum!

I really like FLO's online updates. Cheesy or not, FLO are good guys, the online updates have looked very good to me so far, hats off to the team!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I won the lottery, I would trust FLO with the £1,000,000 order I would place!!

I really like FLO's online updates. Cheesy or not, FLO are good guys, the online updates have looked very good to me so far, hats off to the team!

I never said it was FLO :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

500% increase in sales in the UK is the rummor!

This also means, that people who will sell to make a quick buck on this hobby as well, especially when it comes to scamming people buying c-r-a-p scopes... I noticed PC World has starting to stock Celestron Scopes...

Nadeem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:D :D :) Do you think that if we won the lottery I am going to let you spend that much on astro gear??? :)

It's a fair point, to be honest. I mean, who would spend £1m on astronomy kit when you could afford £1.5m?

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This also means, that people who will sell to make a quick buck on this hobby as well, especially when it comes to scamming people buying c-r-a-p scopes... I noticed PC World has starting to stock Celestron Scopes...

Nadeem.

As PC World in Taunton is barely 100 yards from Sainsbury's, I might have to start doing the shopping :)

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why is it I get the impression that the author of that article has never even touched a telescope?

I can understand why telescope vendors might be struggling to keep up at the moment though. FLO reported something like a doubling of sales at this time last year? Even if they had geared up for the same again, plus a bit, they'd still be 50% under resourced if that claimed 500% increase is across the board.

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would be interested anyway to hear from retailers what the Brian Cox effect has actually had on their throughput.
500% increase in sales in the UK is the rummor!
Based on this story in yesterday's Guardian...
Amazon said they had a 500% increase in telescope sales when the program was on

The News is rarely as good or as bad as they (the News channels) say :D

I can imagine photo retailers and similar might be experiencing a 4x or 5x increase in telescope sales (at a time when they normally wouldn't sell many) but stores like ours which specialise in astronomy, selling telescopes througout the year, are seeing a 2x(ish) increase.

The attached chart shows visitor numbers to our website, which is related to sales.

I would have thought the've all gone off to the caribbean!

Sadly not. The extra sales are largely entry-level telescopes. Most astro retailers price them at close to cost price in the hope of increasing their customer base. The theory being beginners will later buy accessories and upgrade.

I doubt you'll see any astro retailers turning up at Star Partys in a Mercedes. Importers/distributors, maybe, but not retailers.

Do you not think the reason they are not answering is because they are too busy ? :)

The chart shows roughly 2x increase in traffic but because it is mostly beginners looking for a telescope the increase in communications has more than tripled! :D

Fortunately we are better prepared this year. We have built up our stock of the most popular beginner telescopes. We also prepared members here on SGL as best we could HERE and we changed the message on our phones to one requesting people email our helpdesk (Specman emailed our helpdesk Saturday 2.20am, I responded 7.13pm same-day).

We are working late into the night doing our best to ensure people recieve answers.

In the comments there is an informative but slightly snotty (about SGL and FLO) reply.

I saw that, some anonomous character saying members who post anything negative about FLO risk being banned from SGL :)

That is of course nonsense! FLO is SGL's sponsor, we do not own SGL. We do occasionally fail and when we do it generates compaints from members here on SGL. The members are not banned and the posts are still here for all to see. I am painfully aware of each and every one of them :)

Hope that helps,

Steve

post-12699-13387772134_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.