Will post any telescope or related accessory that ship to Singapore and
is cheaper by more than 20% compared to local prices.
Currently there are 5 local telescope sellers with 3 posting their
product price in SGD on their website.
All price estimates I put on this website are the final cost after
- direct international shipping
- 7% GST if exceed SGD$400 per shipment
- 3% extra buffer for bad exchange rate that most credit card issuer
charge for foreign currency transaction.
Some might feel conservative about buying online without physical inspection or warranty, but my view is that we should keep the choices available for future use.
For example amazon.com and it's associated european branches .co.uk .fr .de .es .it
They cover manufacturing defects and shipping damage for the first 7 days.
You can contact their customer service and they will instruct you to ship it back with the most economic postal service within 30days and refund you the postage cost in full once they receive it on their end.
For warranty issues after 7 days up to 1year or manufacturer stated period, the buyer have to foot the nasty Singpost postage.
The USA site have the best prices but they are not allowed to ship internationally due to manufacturer restriction.
European branches are slowly expanding the range of OTA that ship to SG.
The point is to wait for downward price adjustment to maximise savings. This can take months based on past data. They also tend to automatically jump back up in price after fulfilling an undisclosed sales quota.
Prices u see at the product page are inclusive of Eurozone VAT, for export customers it will be removed at final checkout page, around 16% less. To view the shipping quotes at checkout you need to register your credit card and address with your amazon account.
If you are having trouble at France and Germany page, use google chrome browser with the google translate plugin.
For many products the final cost is around 20 to 35+ % lower than local price. The trade-off is you don't get local warranty.
The manufacturer double layer cardboard packaging is adequate against transport crush but not so against 1metre high "postman drop", so the risk is there if you order a scope with fragile glass parts.
Electronic parts are more complex and prone to failure so it depends on your risk appetite.
Leave a comment if you have good/bad experience or any of the above info is wrong.
