FLO now ships internationally.

[tom886]

Sorry, but this is more Pan-Europe shipping, international is for me wordwide

Cheers

Tom

[Stu]

1 hour ago, tom886 said:

Sorry, but this is more Pan-Europe shipping, international is for me wordwide

Cheers

Tom

I think the word you are looking for there is inter-continental Tom.

cheers,

Stu

[FLO]

5 hours ago, tom886 said:

Sorry, but this is more Pan-Europe shipping, international is for me wordwide

 

3 hours ago, Stu said:

I think the word you are looking for there is inter-continental Tom.

International, pan-Europe, inter-continental, I don't mind what you call it so-long as I can have a big map on the wall with lots of pins 

Welcome to SGL Tom. 

Steve 

[Stu]

6 minutes ago, FLO said:

 

International, pan-Europe, inter-continental, I don't mind what you call it so-long as I can have a big map on the wall with lots of pins 

Welcome to SGL Tom. 

Steve 

Question is, do you sit in a big black chair stroking a white cat while you look at your map Steve ??

[FLO]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Question is, do you sit in a big black chair stroking a white cat while you look at your map Steve ??

No cat, just me and a long mug of Guatemala Elephant coffee.  Halcyon days 

[Tim]

I think we'd know "truly international" when we see it  in this forum, don't you think @daz ?

 

[tom886]

So my contribution and membership here is the International part

Cheers Tom

[ollypenrice]

What this thread needs is a little pedantry: a shipment can be international without being intercontinental. (Italy to France.) It can also be intercontiinental without being international. (Madrid to Ceuta, Paris to Guadeloupe) and a service can be international without covering all nations. (We could surely have an 'international' football side which had fewer than 195 players, one for each country recognized by the UN.)

'Between nations' does not have to mean 'between all nations.'

So I put it to the court that FLO be immediately exonerated and sent my legal bill.

Olly

[SilverAstro]

6 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

What this thread needs is a little pedantry / 'Between nations' does not have to mean 'between all nations.' /So I put it to the court that FLO be immediately exonerated and sent my legal bill.

I do like a good bit of pedantry

But I thought FLO always did ship internationally (between some nations), , a Welshman, a Scotsman and an Englishman walked into a forum and  , , ,

[Mike Hawtin]

On 03/07/2015 at 15:17, FLO said:

• FLO now delivers to any EU country plus Norway and Switzerland.

Except Cyprus it seems, I've just tried to place an order for a mount and been advised that Flo do not deliver to Cyprus, very confusing!

Mike

[FLO]

12 hours ago, Mike Hawtin said:

Except Cyprus it seems, I've just tried to place an order for a mount and been advised that Flo do not deliver to Cyprus, very confusing!

Mike

Hi Mike, we discussed this via email last year but it applies also to Malta and Iceland so this is a good opportunity to explain publicly here in this thread. 

DHL (the courier we use) categorise Cyprus, Malta and Iceland as remote locations (Zones 4 & 5) so do not offer Economy rates to these locations. They 'can' deliver but their charge is eye-wateringly high! We are between a rock and a hard place - should we enable deliveries of large/heavy items to these locations and risk someone being insulted at the high cost, or should we conclude it doesn't make economic sense so disable the delivery option? Speaking generally, we have noticed the more remote someone's location, the better and more practiced they are at complaining in dismay at the sheer audacity of couriers charging extra to deliver to them. We value our reputation so decided we would rather be damned for not delivering to a location than be accused of over-charging. It wasn't an easy decision (we don't like saying no) and we might have been wrong. Perhaps we should try enabling shipping of large/heavy items to these locations then assess the response after a few months. I am not sure but will discuss it with my colleagues again when we reopen Monday. 

Meanwhile, Mike, if you email us your requirements we will happily calculate the cost of DHL delivery to you but please don't give us a hard time if it is higher than you would like. 

HTH, 

Steve 

[Mike Hawtin]

Steve, still confused, to the best of my recollection your initial post in this thread  postdated our previous discussion and understood it to mean a change in your previous policy.   Just as a matter of interest I have received heavy and bulky deliveries from  Altair Astro and Ian King Imaging at modest shipping charges, both via DHL, I don't mean to be difficult and I do appreciate you are at the mercy of the courier regarding charges.

Mike

[FLO]

24 minutes ago, Mike Hawtin said:

Just as a matter of interest I have received heavy and bulky deliveries from  Altair Astro and Ian King Imaging at modest shipping charges, both via DHL, I don't mean to be difficult and I do appreciate you are at the mercy of the courier regarding charges.

Mike

This is interesting, did they deliver it from the UK or ask the manufacturer to deliver it to you? (The manufacturer or their distributer might be closer to Cyprus). If they dispatched it themselves from the UK and their DHL charges were acceptable to you then ours will be too. Perhaps we are being over cautious. You say you just tried to order a mount from us, which mount was it please? 

Steve

[Mike Hawtin]

Delivered from the UK, the mount I tried to order is an AZ EQ6 GT.

Mike

[FLO]

Just now, Mike Hawtin said:

Delivered from the UK, the mount I tried to order is an AZ EQ6 GT.

Ah, I can see your predicament. We are cheaper than both Altair Astro and Ian King Imaging but our website doesn't offer delivery to Cyprus. To be fair their checkout pages don't offer delivery to Cyprus either, they invite you to contact them for a quote. Have you done that? Perhaps they will price-match us. 

HTH, 

Steve 

[Mike Hawtin]

Hmm, I wasn't too bothered about the price difference actually, I just wanted to order from FLO!

Mike

[Tim]

I once had to send something heavy to Sark. The goods were a few hundred pounds, the shipping was £1200!!!   Lessens the envy of living on a  nice island somewhat!

[ollypenrice]

No politics on SGL but I don't think I'd want to live on Sark.

We shouldn't beat up suppliers over the policies of couriers. No politics on SGL but when couriers are purely commercial they can decide whom they do and don't want to serve. FLO are not discriminating against Cyprus. (Who, in their right mind, would discriminate against such a wonderful place? I've travelled a fair bit and was asked, the other day, where was my favourite place. Guess what?)

In more enlightened times we had a postal service. If you look at the threads on this forum discussing couriers you do not, you absolutely do not, get the impression that we are going in the right direction.

Olly

 

[SilverAstro]

On 16/04/2016 at 20:49, ollypenrice said:

No politics on SGL but I don't think I'd want to live on Sark.

We shouldn't beat up suppliers over the policies of couriers. No politics on SGL but when couriers are purely commercial they can decide whom they do and don't want to serve.

Perhaps we should not beat up on couriers either ?! because they are not purely commercial, they are regulated, so maybe we should beat up on the regulator ? After all, couriers also have to earn a crust !

[tom886]

Wow, the topic got very interesting.

The reason why I posted is the following:

The country I am living in is pretty close to China so someone should assume the price is lower for astronomy gear which is produced in China or even here in Taiwan.

The reality is that the SW agent here sees only Dollar (or British pound) signs in his eyes and charges extraordinary high (maybe he wanna double his commission).

Small example: For the AZ-EQ6 he asked 1500 GBP, after I told him I can buy overseas cheaper incl. freight and import tax, he lowered the price to 1200 GBP.

GSO, which develops and produces here in Taiwan has here the same prices like in Europe, shopping in Australia would be even cheaper.

Most of my astronomy friends and members of the astronomy club, buy only overseas (USA, Japan, etc.); the SW agent doesn't "understand" why nobody buys from him (His words, not mine)

So long story short, I found an unbeatable offer from FLO website (the SA) and even with "eye-watering" high shipping charges I would still save a lot (because the VAT would be also deducted)

Cheers

Tom

[FLO]

29 minutes ago, tom886 said:

So long story short, I found an unbeatable offer from FLO website (the SA) and even with "eye-watering" high shipping charges I would still save a lot (because the VAT would be also deducted)

Hi Tom, unfortunately we don't ship to Taiwan. Sorry. 

Shipping to countries outside the EU requires careful consideration. I.e. there is admin required for customs, insurance and legal. And we know we meet or exceed trading requirements for EU countries but we don't know the trading laws for Taiwan, whatever they are we would need to comply. 

Other than a few notable exceptions (i.e. Norway and Switzerland) we don't deliver to locations outside the EU. 

[tom886]

On 4/26/2016 at 22:36, FLO said:

Other than a few notable exceptions (i.e. Norway and Switzerland) we don't deliver to locations outside the EU. 

Getting this old topic up again, now I noticed that FLO ships also to Australia, New Zealand and the North-/Southamerica, (outside EU?) but between Europe and Australia is everything grey area.

Now the problem is, I could ship to my companies branch office in UK, but even I leave this address in my profile, the order page still tells me, the item cannot be shipped to Taiwan.

Wondering also, whether I have a chance to update then the billing address, because my credit cards are registered in Taiwan.

Cheers

Tom

[James]

Hi Tom,

We don't ship to South America yet - just the US and Canada in the Americas.. 

If you have a branch office in the UK, entering that as the delivery address will make it possible for us to ship to that address. There shouldn't be a problem with a billing address being in Taiwan. Please feel free to contact us directly on questions@firstlightoptics.com if you wish to discuss a shipment, there may be items that you may struggle to ship from the UK

James

[tom886]

Yeah right, South America is not on the list, my fault

Was a little complicated, had to select the delivery time for UK, then I could go further with my shipping, but then had to enter my billing address and delivery address again (which is btw. not yet updated with the selection).

Still, I am not sure what could you hold back now for Taiwan shipping, now you Australia and New Zealand also included (Taiwan is even closer by a few thousand kilometers )

I mean, tax if charged is payable by the receiver, trade laws are pretty much no problem due that we are not China and not sure whether I mentioned that before, but I can order from any shop in Europe, incl. UK (not only Amazon) and all ship to Taiwan. (Teleskop-Express, DE, Teleskop Austria, Rowan Astronomy, UK, Orion Optics, UK, etc...).

Maybe you guys should take this in consideration, then my astronomy colleagues don't need to order from Optcorp or other companies in UK.

Cheers

Tom

[FLO]

On 04/07/2015 at 14:13, FLO said:

We have been able to lower our delivery charges to many of the UK's more remote locations. 

We have today entirely removed our remote delivery charges 

Our delivery charges are now the same for all UK customers, regardless of where they live. This includes areas like the more remote parts of Scotland, Orkney, the Shetland Islands, IOW and Northern Ireland.

All UK customers pay the same price for delivery