It's started ! Price increases.

[The Warthog]

Been looking at a Skywatcher scope. If the price here is high enough I may just book a flight and short break to Toronto and buy one there

I may not save overall but I would at least get a short break out of it :laughing3: and see a bit of Toronto.

Come in June, land in Toronto, buy a scope, rent a car and come to Pennsylvania for the Cherry Springs Star Party which I posted about earlier. You'll have a great vacation, and go home with a scope.

[MikeP]

I've just been looking at the Tak prices and it's shocking. The scope I bought not that long ago, now costs £940 more.

I bought a TOA130S plus bits early last year - I wish my investments had appreciated at the same rate (any positive rate would have done ).

Mike

[ribuck]

There's one thing everyone is forgetting. 2009 is supposed to be the year of Astronomy, but the irony of it all is that it's likely to be one of the worst years for a long time.

I think most people like me, will be tightening the old wallet, and unfortunately it's the vendors who will ultimately suffer, due to no fault of their own.

I certainly hope that both Steve (FLO) and Bern (Modern Atronomy) will make it through this year and come out the other side.

Guys i'm rooting for you both.

[beamer3.6m]

If a retailer wants to survive then they need to make a decision - higher profit or higher sales.

[ribuck]

Beamer you have to take into consideration these price hikes are coming from the greedy manufacturers and other external forces, not from the resellers.

From my understanding, the margins the resellers make are fairly smaill to begin with, so it's hard from them to cut them much lower.

I think well see very little sales for the first 6 months, then when the greedy manufacturers start to realize that they aren't making any money as they aren't selling anything, then they will start to price things realistically again.

I can give you a classic example of this. I work for a pharmaceutical company, our products were always quite expensive and sales over a 2 year period dwindled as nobody was buying. eventually we were sold to an Indian comany.

The Indian company, was very good at cutting out unecessary manufacturing expenses and they really streamlinedour business to make are operating costs very low. This meant we could offer our products a lot cheaper without affecting thequality of the goods. This then resulted in massive sales revenue increases and now we are the most competative company around.

So my point is that it's the manufcaturers who need to look at their manufacuring processes and find away to make them more efficient, not just whack up the price or they will ultimately suffer or they will die out like we nearly did and not just the resellers.

[astro84]

Hello Ribuck,

Beamer you have to take into consideration these price hikes are coming from the greedy manufacturers and other external forces, not from the resellers.

From my understanding, the margins the resellers make are fairly smaill to begin with, so it's hard from them to cut them much lower.

Actually.., I believe that the majority of folks that have openly stated their views / intentions on NOT succumbing to proposed higher pricing are quite aware that it is range of resellers, premier partners, distributors, etc that need to respond to consumer reactions.

Its the sales and turnaround numbers that (greedy, was it?) manufacturers respond to, and these are generated at the reseller / retail level. I'd humbly suggest that what's happening here is a heads up to retailers to "have a game plan" to take back to their suppliers.

Personally? I'm very mindful of the fact that despite the £ being at US$1.87 in 2008, US sourced products were still being priced in the UK at (at best) US$1.00 :UK£1.00 - at more than a couple of shops, the rate was even higher - they know who they are.

For two products I personally called the manufacturers' US offices to ask about pricing differences here in the UK, and on both occasions, each (at least on the phone with me) were "disappointed" with what they saw when they hit the UK shop websites.

So whilst 2009 appears to be a tough year price-wise - I'll simply have to buy what I NEED, as and WHEN I can AFFORD to, from WHEREVER I get the best deal for MY money - as such, I'll not lose sleep for any retailers.

Regards,

astro84

[ribuck]

I see what you're saying Astro84, and in some respects agree I agree, but it's always good to try and support people like steve and bern as they have always been extremely helpful on this forum irrelivant of make a sale or not.

I've rang both steve and Bern on a number of occasions about trivial stuff, and they have taken their time and effort to help me. This is perdonally why i would like to support them any way i can, but in the same token i need to find the best price around and both steve and bern have always been good at matching prices.

[FLO]

Not so long ago there was a significant price difference between US and UK prices (just about every UK dealer was adopting the $=£ approach and it was very annoying!) but these days it isn't like that... most of the time.

Been looking at a Skywatcher scope. If the price here is high enough I may just book a flight and short break to Toronto and buy one there

You don't mention which Skywatcher telescope but if we look at the Skywatcher 300p Flextube we find the following:

Toronto price: $999 (Canadian Dollar)

At the current exchange rate that's £568.86

UK (FLO's) current selling price is £576.47 (£7.61 difference)

Factor in the 4.2% import duty, 15% VAT, shipping across the pond (its a BIG scope!) and handling fee's and there's no contest, today's UK price is significantly cheaper.

Lets also look at the Celestron Nexstar 6Se (I'm choosing these examples only because they are bestsellers):

American price: $999

At the current exchange rate that's £686.61

UK (FLO's) current selling price is £695 (£9 difference)

Again, factor in Duty, VAT, etc and the US telescope is much more expensive (and will not have a UK warranty).

Interestingly, over the last few days we have been asked to deliver astro-kit to France, Portugal, Malta, Greece, Finland, Japan and even to the US (twice).

Prices of most astro-kit (can't comment on the Meade example) here in the UK are at an all-time low. Price increases are on the way but I suspect that also applies to other countries.

Hopefully, fingers-crossed, the rip-off-Britain behaviour that annoyed us for so long has/will become a thing of the past (thanks largely to forums such as this)

I certainly hope that both Steve (FLO) and Bern (Modern Atronomy) will make it through this year and come out the other side.

Guys i'm rooting for you both.

Thank-you,

These are certainly challenging times but FLO is a young company with relatively low overheads so we should be okay

Old-school companies and those with premises and a number of staff are most at risk...

[tinvek]

plus unlike certain companies, you do actually regard customers as desirable rather than an inconvience and do actually bother to deal with the orders you accept

[ribuck]

Speaking of which, Steve can you reply to my email when you get a min , sent it to the helpdesk address, was just about the discussion we had over xmas about the filterwheels.

[Dave]

When I look back at the equipment that was available to us amateurs a few years ago, there is now no comparison to what you can get for your money today. We are living in great times although sadly light pollution is degrading our view. The quality of the images and observations being made by amateurs, as shown time after time on this excellent forum, are second to none. We now have access to top quality equipment at what are in relative terms still quite reasonable prices (even if we still cannot always quite afford what we really, really want).

[Lady Isabella]

When I look back at the equipment that was available to us amateurs a few years ago, there is now no comparison to what you can get for your money today. We are living in great times although sadly light pollution is degrading our view. The quality of the images and observations being made by amateurs, as shown time after time on this excellent forum, are second to none. We now have access to top quality equipment at what are in relative terms still quite reasonable prices (even if we still cannot always quite afford what we really, really want).

Back in 1952, the US Democratic party said "You never had it so good".

Only taken me the best part of 50 years to get there. Not only is the stuff top quality, but you can have delivery the next day.

30 years ago I was buying Japanese Achromat refractors from UK dealers, then the scopes cost 12 to 15x my weekly wage, you had

to pay 100% the cost up-front (a deposit was not even an option) , then after all that you had the pleasure of waiting up to 9 months before the man from the post office would knock on your door with your nice new piece of kit.

[ribuck]

Holy cow, that's crazy.

Well i'm not going to complain, thanks to Steve at Flo sorting me a great deal on a True-Tech super slim motorized wheel, which was ordered today and will arrive tomorrow.

Now only if the clouds would clear, it's been 6 weeks now.... surely they have to clear at some point.

[calibos]

Just found this thread during a search on another subject and seeing as the threads last post was about a week ago its probably not too late to resurrect so I thought I would add my 2 cents on the GBP1800 Lightbridge16/TelescopeHouse issue.

It was actually another Irish poster to this thread John (ArtyFarty) that tipped me off on the Xmas discount at telescopehouse. I had tipped him off about the Euro/Sterling exchange rate nearing parity before Christmas and he happened to be pricechecking telescopehouse just at the right time to catch the extra special deal. We ordered our Lightbridges from Telescopehouse the same night for delivery to Ireland.

Some background. Ever since the Lightbridge 16 was launched by Meade back in late 2007, the scope has cost about 2400 euros. It still costs 2400 euros to this day on most european astro sites though I have found one or two selling it at 1950 euros. At launch in the UK the LB16 cost about GBP 1799 IIRC. At the Euro/Sterling exchange rate back in '07 and most of '08 the GBP1799 was roughly equivelent to 2400 euros, the the UK and European pricing was broadly similar. In the last few months most UK retailers brought the price down to between GBP1499-1599. At the exchange rate at that time, that represented a nice saving for euro buyers but I just couldn't find a UK retailer willing to ship to Ireland so didn't by back then.

So about 2 months ago, Meade themselves subsidised a significant UK and US market only discount bringing the UK price down to GBP1075. They did not offer this super discount in Europe. For eurozone buyers this represented another large extra chunk of savings when converted to Euro. When Sterling hit near parity after Christmas from the affects of the economic crisis that GBP1075 just turned into 1075 euros give or take. Remember this scope is 2400 euros in Europe (in the beginning, then, now and still!!)

Absolute bargain of the century!!

So John (Artyfarty) had found an extraspecial xmas deal of GBP968 at TelescopeHouse and they would ship to Ireland. Hallaluya!!

Muggins here thought he would be a bit cheeky and ask for a discount on the shipping charges and bluffed that he would cancel his order and get the scope cheaper elsewhere (not Likely!).

Telescopehouse called my bluff and god damn their efficiency had refunded my card imediately. It was explained to me in a thoroughly courteous and professional manner (despite probably knowing I was a fibber and a chancer ) that unless this other company had current stock on hand they could not offer the scope anywhere near this price because while current stock was at a subsidised price of GBP1075 any new stock ordered by my mythical 'better deal' company would be back to the old non meade subsidised price off at least GBP1499.

I quickly re-ordered my scope from TelescopeHouse as fast as I could before they sold out to some guy called Hans or Heinrich or Francois or Pedro or Benito :mrgreen:

I learned my lesson too when I found that while the exchange rate made for very good reading when Sterling was debited from my € visa card it did not make for good reading in the credit column when a few days latter the Telescope Refund for the first scope order came in. The exhchange rate had dropped back a few pence by then and my refund credit was 80 euros less than when the scope was debited days previously in real terms. Of course Telescopehouse Debited and credited exactly GBP968 both times so this was nothing to do with them. I actually thought they had forgot to credit me the shipping on the first order for a while and sent of a fair few emails trying to explain to them that they still owed me another 80 euros. My emails were replied to within minutes each time with courteousness and patience each time till they got it into my thick skull :mrgreen: that they were not at fault. I cannot fault their customer service. They were absolutely great.

So to make a long story short. The UK and TelescopeHouse pricing didn't 'really' jump from GBP1075 all the way up to GBP1800. More like it was about to revert to its pre-Meade subsidised price of GBP1499 but with Sterling weak against the dollar and the scopes costing more to by from the US in dollars, the retailers were forced to up their prices by GBP300. ie. GBP1499 -> GBP1800 (not GBP1075 ->GBP1800)

[Bigwings]

Is it me or is Meade just being greedy???

I can still get an Nexstar SE8 for LESS than I paid 4 months ago (FLO website price).

American prices are always a fraction of ours anyway.

Most manufacturers are desperately trying to defend market share and maintain a cash flow.

Perhaps SGL should organise a survey on Meade price rises and forward it to MEADE US with a suggested boycott and see what happens to prices. No point at getting at suppliers they have to make a margin and try to be competitive.