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Explore Scientific Sale


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Looks like ES has a eyepiece sale going on again.  Up to about 50 percent off.  Not sure how long it will last. 

Edited by Mike Q
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36 minutes ago, Mike Q said:

Looks like ES has a eyepiece sale going on again.  Up to about 50 percent off.  Not sure how long it will last. 

Looks like the sale is North America (US?) only, no change in price over here. Amazon.com prices are unchanged, so anyone in the UK wanting to take advantage of the sale (and it does look attractive!) would have to find a US based astro shop that will sell abroad.

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I bought direct from an US ES sale a few years ago with no problem. A lovely 25mm eyepiece for $25 plus a little for shipping. Was concerned I might get stung for duties etc, but it wasn't a problem.

Only after I'd ordered it did I realise it was a 2" ep, so it cost as much again to get the 2" diagonal in UK.

Haven't used it much, but the combo works very well for terrestrial use with my little refractor (I can cope with a L/R reversal)..

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5 hours ago, Shimrod said:

Looks like the sale is North America (US?) only, no change in price over here. Amazon.com prices are unchanged, so anyone in the UK wanting to take advantage of the sale (and it does look attractive!) would have to find a US based astro shop that will sell abroad.

Out of interest, how does this work?

For example, I know that the large UK supermarkets are generally in such a strong position compared with their suppliers, that they can just announce (for their own purposes) a sale on a product line, and tell the supplier to take a hit on the wholesale price.

But in astro? Presumably it's Bresser making the calls on the (rather frequent) ES sales?
Do they tell the retailers in advance, and reduce the wholesale price in the interim? What if the retailers already have the stock, do they get some retrospective compensation from the supplier if they participate in the sale?

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5 hours ago, Zermelo said:

Out of interest, how does this work?

For example, I know that the large UK supermarkets are generally in such a strong position compared with their suppliers, that they can just announce (for their own purposes) a sale on a product line, and tell the supplier to take a hit on the wholesale price.

But in astro? Presumably it's Bresser making the calls on the (rather frequent) ES sales?
Do they tell the retailers in advance, and reduce the wholesale price in the interim? What if the retailers already have the stock, do they get some retrospective compensation from the supplier if they participate in the sale?

Jing Hua Optical calls the shots.  They wholly own Explore Scientific.

They tell the retailers about the sale a little in advance, to seek advance orders.

In other industries, the retailer will get a rebate for the cost differences of his stock.

In this industry, they expect you to make up the loss by resupplying all your stock during the sale period and selling the lower cost stock at the full retails after the sale is over.

That might work, but it defers the profits, often to another quarter, which is not good. 

And the wholesale sale prices end well in advance of the end of the retail sales period, so if you guess wrong, you end up resupplying at full cost and the sale just represents a loss. 

And, many times, ES just runs out of stock during the sale periods and you simply cannot resupply at the sale costs.

Then, almost the entirety of your sales during the sales periods are at cost or below cost.

And, almost the entirety of annual sales are during the sale periods.  On paper, ES was a profitable line.  An analysis of annual sales showed it to be

a very very low profit brand.  

I refused to participate in the sales during the last year I carried the brand.  I sold a lot less, but made more profit.

The discounts this time are severe, and quite a bit below regular dealer costs.  I hope it doesn't mean they are pulling out of the US market.

Edited by Don Pensack
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I've just checked Amazon.com and if you filter by seller, you can buy from Explore Scientific at the sale price, with $11.32 shipping to the UK. Not all eyepieces appear to be in the sale - as always, buying from the US (even Amazon) gives a headache if you end up with a faulty product.

Here's a link:  https://www.amazon.com/s?k=explore+scientific+eyepiece&i=photo&rh=n%3A499158%2Cn%3A499164%2Cp_6%3AAVCJM6VIMRYT&dc&ds=v1%3Ad%2BIIEUjM7I0QD8LAsJPDuAlfg%2BmmHKfciplt4j6YIWI&qid=1680902803&rnid=303116011&sprefix=explore+sc%2Caps%2C172&ref=sr_nr_p_6_3

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@Don Pensack that's mildly terrifying.  Sounds like a poisoned chalice.  Glad that even at sale prices they're a bit too much for me (not to mention the bigger fact that I don't think I'm good enough an observer to really get the benefit)

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17 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

In this industry, they expect you to make up the loss by resupplying all your stock during the sale period and selling the lower cost stock at the full retails after the sale is over.

Are you allowed to skip the sale and simply resupply at the sale period wholesale price?  If so, when the sale is over, you still have stock to sell at a decent profit.  If not, what about using shell companies to participate in the sale, buy at sale wholesale prices, but list items as out of stock, and then move that stock to the actual selling company after the sale?  I wonder if JOC monitors their sellers closely enough to notice this stock shuffling is happening.  I know NYC based photo retailers used to do a huge business with gray market items bought overseas to take advantage of differing sale prices and currency fluctuations.  These items would be moved into the US to be sold at higher prices.  This is the sort of stock shuffling I'm thinking of, but strictly within the US.

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33 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Are you allowed to skip the sale and simply resupply at the sale period wholesale price?  If so, when the sale is over, you still have stock to sell at a decent profit.  If not, what about using shell companies to participate in the sale, buy at sale wholesale prices, but list items as out of stock, and then move that stock to the actual selling company after the sale?  I wonder if JOC monitors their sellers closely enough to notice this stock shuffling is happening.  I know NYC based photo retailers used to do a huge business with gray market items bought overseas to take advantage of differing sale prices and currency fluctuations.  These items would be moved into the US to be sold at higher prices.  This is the sort of stock shuffling I'm thinking of, but strictly within the US.

Yes, you could buy at sale costs and simply not participate in the sale.  You sell almost zero during the sale period, though.

JOC seems to have lost control of their distribution anyway, as there are lots of Chinese dealers selling them direct to the US for very low prices.

This sale might be a way of competing with that.

 

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