Hi all,
I drafted this email up shortly after I put my initial request for information on Birding-Aus. Shortly after that, we had floods in SEQ and I had to evacuate my house (it was a near miss for us, many of my friends and neighbours weren’t so lucky), so I’m sure you can understand sending an email wasn’t the first thing on my mind. Anyway, while the numbers may be slightly out of date, the links should still be fine and hopefully of interest to the list.
A huge thank you to everyone who sent me advice. I was aware of most but not all of what was said, but there are a few things it is important to remember when looking to shop online. The first is warranty. If you are buying from the USA, you need to be very careful that you are getting an international warranty, and not one that is only valid in the USA. Secondly, for any purchase over $1000 you will be charged 10% GST when it gets to customs, plus a handling fee of around $50. Some companies in the USA won’t ship outside of the states. If you have friends within the States you could get it posted to them, however you may also have issues with them not wanting to post items to an address other than what is on your credit card. For those that do post internationally, the cost seems to be about $130, which I think isn’t too bad for a guaranteed service (i.e. if your package is lost, it’s covered by insurance).
Ok, onto the companies. Here are a list of US companies people recommended. They were all lauded for their speed and reliability. I have used B&H personally before http://www.opticsplanet.net http://www.adorama.com/ http://www.spottingscopes.com/ http://bluebazooka.com/ http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ http://www.eagleoptics.com/ (only within US) http://www.llbean.com/
I compared prices based on 2 binoculars, the Leica 10×42 Ultravid HD, and the Nikon Monarch 8×42 ATB with dielectric prism coating. Surprisingly, there was very little variation in pricing, with the Leicas being $2199.00 across the board and the Nikons being about $279.95 give or take $5. This is compared with a Leica pricetag of ~$3600 and a Nikon one of ~$550 in Australian shops.
However, Keith from Kingfisher Park sent me through two links which really surprised me. The first was an Australian company with the Leicas for $2345.38, surprisingly low.
http://binocularsandtelescopes.com.au
The second was the clear winner on price, which was a NZ company with the Leicas for $2960 NZD, which minus the 15% GST, and with the exchange rate, comes to about $1899.17. Add the 10% GST for Australian imports, and shipping, and you still end up ahead. I’m in the process of inquiring about warranties at the moment (and am still waiting at the time of sending).
http://www.outdoorsupplies.co.nz/
BTW this is the kind of purchase Mr Harvey of Harvey Norman is working at getting made illegal, or at least be slugged with a big tariff, so if you plan to do this into the future maybe writing to your local member in support of current trade practices would be a good idea.
Regards, Chris Sanderson ===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================
