Astronomy Ireland charging for events

They said that since I would be bringing the scope to Europe I could not buy from them

Isn't that utter nonsense. So what would have happened if you did go to the shop with a fistful of dollars? What are they gonna say "Sorry I can't sell to you because you have an Irish accent"?

To be honest when I got that on the phone I decided I wasn't even going to bother visiting the shop.

That is exactly what happened to one person I know who tried to buy a scope in a certain shop in NY. Absurd!

That is unbelievable. How could a shop assistant say that with a straight face!! So practice a texan drawl before y' go y'all

The NY shops are quite special! They have refused to ship anything to Europe for me, but will ship to a friend in San Francisco where I can pick up the goods. Even that required getting my friend to fax them a letter and utility bills. I appreciate and understand taking measures to verify the card and address but I thought their thoroughness was a bit excessive. I'd no problems dealing with them in person in the shops, mind you I wasn't buying Meade or Celestron.

The main problem as I see it is that these companies are American. Therefore I wonder what if anything your MEP could do about it anyway? Maybe they could stop these companies shipping to Europe altogether, but lets face it that is unlikely and probably counterproductive anyway.

I'm not sure where the root of the problem is, whether its celestron HQ, David Hinds or someplace else. But restricting trade within the EU seems wrong and within the remit of the MEPs to have a look at. Does anyone know if the same rules apply between say French and German retailers?

The main problem as I see it is that these companies are American. Therefore I wonder what if anything your MEP could do about it anyway? Maybe they could stop these companies shipping to Europe altogether, but lets face it that is unlikely and probably counterproductive anyway.

I'm not sure where the root of the problem is, whether its celestron HQ, David Hinds or someplace else. But restricting trade within the EU seems wrong and within the remit of the MEPs to have a look at. Does anyone know if the same rules apply between say French and German retailers?

Al,

It is Celestron HQ forcing the issue of local purchases and even within the EU. Of course, this is illegal since we supposedly have no borders within member states.

Did I miss something?

Was there a 'disagreement' between AI and another Celstron Supplier in the EU?

Dave

Even that required getting my friend to fax them a letter and utility bills.

Now there's a can of worms. Utility bills are quite dangerous because they sometimes contain enough information to base an identity theft on. A well known camera outlet asked me for that kind of confirmation once (they were shipping to Ireland in this particular case) but immediately relented when I explained my objection and accepted my payment details without any such documents. That made me suspicious. Less than 2 weeks later there were three fraudulent attempts to use my credit card details but they were spotted by the bank, which immediately contacted me to ask for permission to replace my card. I haven't done business with that outlet since.

Hi John,
Can you PM me the name of the shop that you refer to above.

It is common practice for companies to use a local dealer network in many industries, especially in the chemical industry. You would never buy direct from say BASF, you would use their local distributor in Ireland or the UK. If your geographic dealers end up in a competitive situation (by having different prices) it will ultimately result in price cutting. This is great for the consumer but for a manufacturer, they might as well just pull the product from the market and may be forced to do so, especially in a zone with several exchange rates.
I can't comment on how each dealer prices products to consumers but I am pretty sure the manufacturer will have guidelines to stop consumers moving to a lower cost competitor because of high prices.
The basic problem is that there are not enough players in the market to keep the prices down in Europe. If there was a sudden flood of low cost quality products coming in from China or Russia you would see the prices come sharply down- and there is an opportunity for someone to do this. Companies like Orion Optics for example make some great optics at great prices -but they don't make a lot of them to be a competitive threat in the SCT market.
That my two cents worth (please don't ask for change back)....