Astrobargains Store

simranjits · Post by **simranjits** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:05 pm

Well the uncle there told me they only had Celestron , and i saw 1-2 vixen , didn't see anything else. But the prices put me off already.

Well i do mention the types of scope i'm looking for in my intro, check it out.

simranjits · Post by **simranjits** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 9:45 pm

Agreed , but u need to to entice people by offering telescopes within the $300 range for beginers , i believe there are people who want to get into casual astronomy but the high prices and complexity drives them away.

chrisyeo wrote:Hi simranjits,

You'll have to understand the astronomy has a VERY small market here in Singapore, which explains a little the small pickings and prices. You are right to say it would be nice to have an open store, a great e-commerce site, and a large range of beginner products, but what you have now is already 10 times better than a few years ago; trust me!

Joo Beng is a trusted and good dealer; I'm sure he'll get back to you shortly. He'll take any feedback you have about the website as well. In the meantime go ahead and check out Astroscientific.

Do take your time to shop around carefully. No point jumping into a piece of equipment that you don't know enough about. Make sure that you have observed through a telescope and learnt more before buying.

Perhap you can introduce yourself on another thread? You're welcome to ask other questions you might have as well.

Welcome to Singastro.

Chris

kayheem · Post by **kayheem** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:08 pm

It will be tough trying to get a good brand new scope for $300. Your best bet is the Buy and Sell section of Singastro. Other option is to buy a bino or simply tag along for some ob session and get to know the different types of scopes and decide which is the best for your needs and budget.

starfinder · Post by **starfinder** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:39 pm

simranjits wrote:Yeah but he could have gotten oscommerce or something like that to showcase his products better , his pricelist doesn't match what he has on his website. Its not expensive or hard to setup a decent e-commerce site.

I can't be waiting several days for an email response, thats not the way to do business. Anyways i'll be heading down now to Astro Scientific to scope out their prices.

I think we need a solid Astro e-commerce site that contains larger range of beginer level products , $300-500 to get casual people into the hobby. Right now from what i've seen on all the sites , they carry only the $500+ products.

Hi simranjits,

I think your comments against astrobargains is one-sided and rather too public.

If you think its easy to run an astro business in Singapore, please give it a try and find out, especially since you think "we need a solid Astro e-commerce site that contains larger range of beginer level products".

That way, you could demonstrate how you "could have gotten oscommerce or something like that to showcase" the products "better", since "Its not expensive or hard to setup a decent e-commerce site."

My experience with them has been positive. As an on-line enterprise for astro equipment, they can't afford to be on call all the time. If they did, they would have to charge the much higher prices of brick-and-motar retail shops to be profitable. Joo Beng is overseas right now, so you would need to be a bit more patient and rely on email since they have not advertised that they are available by phone call, but by email and fax only.

simranjits · Post by **simranjits** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:48 pm

Agreed that the owner is great guy and all, but in my humble opinion , any online store should reply to mails fast. Fast and prompt responses to queries and requests are extremely important in any online business i think u would agree as well. Originally i was under the impression that it was a retail store , but later on i got some hints that it was a home based business. So i can understand some of the limitations.

No probs though , right now they seem to be the best stocked and decently priced among the online stores. Sent them an email yesterday , awaiting their reply.

starfinder wrote:
simranjits wrote:Yeah but he could have gotten oscommerce or something like that to showcase his products better , his pricelist doesn't match what he has on his website. Its not expensive or hard to setup a decent e-commerce site.

I can't be waiting several days for an email response, thats not the way to do business. Anyways i'll be heading down now to Astro Scientific to scope out their prices.

I think we need a solid Astro e-commerce site that contains larger range of beginer level products , $300-500 to get casual people into the hobby. Right now from what i've seen on all the sites , they carry only the $500+ products.

Hi simranjits,

I think your comments against astrobargains is one-sided and rather too public.

If you think its easy to run an astro business in Singapore, please give it a try and find out, especially since you think "we need a solid Astro e-commerce site that contains larger range of beginer level products".

That way, you could demonstrate how you "could have gotten oscommerce or something like that to showcase" the products "better", since "Its not expensive or hard to setup a decent e-commerce site."

My experience with them has been positive. As an on-line enterprise for astro equipment, they can't afford to be on call all the time. If they did, they would have to charge the much higher prices of brick-and-motar retail shops to be profitable. Joo Beng is overseas right now, so you would need to be a bit more patient and rely on email since they have not advertised that they are available by phone call, but by email and fax only.

jermng · Post by **jermng** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:28 pm

Agreed that the owner is great guy and all, but in my humble opinion , any online store should reply to mails fast. Fast and prompt responses to queries and requests are extremely important in any online business i think u would agree as well. Originally i was under the impression that it was a retail store , but later on i got some hints that it was a home based business. So i can understand some of the limitations

No probs though , right now they seem to be the best stocked and decently priced among the online stores. Sent them an email yesterday , awaiting their reply.

Actually I don't treat astro bargains as an online store. It's more like a guy who's interested in astronomy and wants to sell stuff - maybe for profit, maybe for interest. Also brings in stuff from the US for local astronomers for a small fee if locals don;t want to bother with arranging the shipping and paperwork which can get frustrating. (At least that's how I look at it.)

Astro Bargains is far from a profit making business for Joo Beng, it's more like something he does in his spare time. (at least not a huge profit from such a small market.

)

As for online retailers, just google Astronomy/telescope store or something and you'll find alot of links.

From personal experience, the bigger stores generally accept Singapore credit cards. retailers are only limited by certain manufacturers' policies against shipping overseas. You can get around that by paying with your credit card and arranging for either a) a friend to bring it over or b) using a mail/parcel forwarding service like Vpost. But you'll have to pay a pretty price for option B.

I find your argument about the local stores having to offer scopes in the $300 to $500 a little amusing. The scopes you're looking at cost about S$450 without shipping. Put shipping and GST into the equation and you get a something in the region of ~$600. On top of that, remember that the dealer has to make a profit and can't be importing these scopes for free so we cant expect to pay them the same amount we do when we arrange our own shipping and paperwork.
Remember, retailers like Astrobargains do not get significant discounts as dealers because they do not order in bulk. (I might be wrong here though, but I'm pretty sure)

It's like saying since there are so many people interested in driving their own cars and have a budget of maybe $10,000 why doesn't Toyota offer their cars at $10,000 so that people who just got their license can get their first car?
Well, they simply can't because they have costs and have to make a profit. Of course, the amount of profit any dealer makes is outside the scope of this post.

To put it simply, if you think a car is too expensive, get a motorbike, if you think a bike is too expensive, take public transport. In our case, if you think telescopes are too expensive, you can use binos. If you think binos are not good for you, you can always attend the ob sessions here in Singastro or join TASOS.

We've all been there before. I had a cheapie Celestron 60mm achro for about 12 years before I got my first decent scope 2 years ago. In that time, I just used whatever binos my dad had (8x25s and 7x35s) and I had a lot of fun!

jermng · Post by **jermng** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:41 pm

Sorry, I'd also like to add that it's possible to get an "Astronomical telescope" for $49.90 from carrefour and less than $200-300 from Lucky Plaza but these telescopes will frustrate a beginner more than let them enjoy the hobby.

Once again, been there, done that.

Most of the time, I would advice beginners to stay away from sub SGD$500 scopes not because I look down on them, but simply because the beginner will probably have more problems than fun.

I think the general advice given on SingAstro is the same - use a bino first and save up for a more appropriate scope which you'll get more from.

I bought a DS-2090 for fun last year and ended selling it within 2 weeks. It cost only US$149 on sale (before shipping), but the amount of backlash and lack of rigidity gave me more problems than I cared for. Sold it to someone who wanted it for parts to modify for other purposes.

kayheem · Post by **kayheem** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:34 am

jermng wrote:
Once again, been there, done that.

Yup, I suppose we have all gone thru the 'been there, done that' stage. However, in this internet age, many of the newbies can save themselves a lot of heartache by doing a search on the net for interest groups, joining in to ask for advice first.

simranjits · Post by **simranjits** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:23 am

Jerm , so u wouldn't recomend a ds114 as well?

river · Post by **river** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:17 pm

Sold it to someone who wanted it for parts to modify for other purposes.

hehe... someone else got it to make a GOTO refractor.... I guess he took some saturn pic with it recently

Dont go to astrobargain like you go to 7-11, it is not just grab some item, pay and off you go. Our local vendor have more to offer, talk to them.

Most of us here enjoy talking to Joo Beng anything about astronomy and astro equipment. For me, meeting people, making friends and sharing idea is part of the hobby.