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The Brian Cox affect!

FLO

By FLO
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FLO

FLO

Posted
Posted

The BBC Stargazing Live series of programmes with Brian Cox and Dara Ó Briain is nearly upon us! The first episode airs next Tue 8pm on BBC-2.

Some will remember how incredibly successful the last series was. The programmes generated a tidal wave of people interested in beginning astronomy. This chart shows the increase in traffic to our website through the period 1st Dec 2011 - 1st Mar 2012.

brian_cox_affect_2012.jpg

It was wonderful seeing so many people wanting to observe the night sky but it put a serious strain on the astro retail industry because the number of enquiries more than doubled as importers/distributors ran out of stock! We apologised as best we could and promised to invest in additional premises, more staff and to carry more stock. We have kept our promise :icon_salut:

We moved into larger premises and have another additional unit (we were going to use it as a showroom but it is now full of stock!). We have employed another full-time member of staff SteveB and Megan has joined us part-time to help with dispatch. We have also upgraded our helpdesk and website to make it easier to for you to email questions and receive a response.

I can't promise there won't be stock shortages but we have done all we can to make this year's 'Brian Cox affect' more manageable and less disruptive :smiley:

Steve

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FLO

FLO

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Nice problem to have, too much business :)

Last year it was a double edged sword and proved to be a full-on crisis. Importer/distributors ran out of stock, demand and communications were at an all time high, three staff went down with flu (including myself) then Martin had a serious accident and my wife went in for an op'. It was the retail equivalent of a 'perfect storm' but we survived and have made the changes necessary to prevent it happening again. At least I hope we have... :smiley:

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andrew63

andrew63

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Last year it was a double edged sword and proved to be a full-on crisis. Importer/distributors ran out of stock, demand and communications were at an all time high, three staff went down with flu (including myself) then Martin had a serious accident and my wife went in for an op'. It was the retail equivalent of a 'perfect storm' but we survived and have made the changes necessary to prevent it happening again. At least I hope we have... :smiley:

We wish you well - but that's what they said with the floods...

andrew

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Carbon Brush

Carbon Brush

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I think the important things to remember here are...

FLO were honest last year about delivery delays and have issued a caution in advance for this year.

How many suppliers try to hide problems?

All these potential new stargazers can only help us in the fight against light pollution.

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M4lcs67

M4lcs67

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Am fully loaded with gear now, courtesy of you guys. Just need some clear sky for next week and the weeks to come. Rather ironic that the week after the passing of Sir Patrick, the skies in this part of the world were excellent.

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