What are Swarovski up to? (1 Viewer)

CDK said:

Elkcub
According to their UK web site, Carl Zeiss is a stock corporation, however it is not a listed company. Carl Zeiss Stiftung (foundation) is the sole owner of Carl Zeiss AG.
In the past fiscal year CZ have converted parts of the group into stock corporations.

So when this thread is about Swarovski, do we compare like for like in other words, Leica Camera/Sports Optics, Zeiss Sports Optics, Swarovski Optik, Nikon Sports Optics as opposed to the whole company structure.

Or do we choose the bits we want?

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CDK,

This is a discussion forum and I made the observation some posts back that Swarovski is a closely held family-owned firm, whereas the others are not.

Apparently the corporate/division structures are rather complex, but there are clearly publicly-held aspects (perhaps partial or mixed in Zeiss' case), as you appear to agree. Do you feel these distinctions are simply not relevant to understanding corporate behavior? After all, the title of this thread is: "What are Swarovski up to?" (as if there were some nefarious schemes at play). I think what they are "up to" is much more understandable taking this into account.

Or do we avoid the bits we don't want?

Enjoy the view whatever you do,
Elkcub

elkcub said:

Yes, thanks for help with the terminology.

• Publicly held companies issue stock to the general public, therefore the public owns, or holds, a certain percentage of that company.
www.smithbarney.com/yin/he_dictionary.htm

-elk

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Thank you all for clarifying some of the terminology to a non-native English speaker. I had thought that public (as in German) meant something on the level of government ( be it town, city or country, thus not necessarily national).

bolton birdman said:

Its marketing strategy from the big 3 realising that in competing with each other they are losing profits. 2 of them have decided to lower there prices and thus using there brand name to compete with lower priced optics while 1 of them as increased its price knowing there is always people who will pay anything for the best. Its calculated and it means greater profits to all 3 companies. Companies are playing this game all the time. To me it appears text book games theory

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Birdman,

In reviewing this thread I'm afraid I missed a very important point that you made on post #79. I was too busy talking about something else (as usual). Very sorry. Looked at this way, things can be modeled as textbook game theory, and the strategies you mentioned explain a lot. :egghead:

Regards,
-elk

bolton birdman said:

Its marketing strategy from the big 3 realising that in competing with each other they are losing profits. 2 of them have decided to lower there prices and thus using there brand name to compete with lower priced optics while 1 of them as increased its price knowing there is always people who will pay anything for the best.

Click to expand...

First, from my following these manufactuters and their prices over the last decade or so, I certainly don't see where Leica or Zeiss decided to lower their prices. Instead, whenever Swaro delivers a new product to the market they just set the price 20-40% more than the other brands.

Also, the last sentence of the quote should probably read "... people who will pay anything for what they believe to be the best."

In other words Swaro is taking advantage of snob appeal. Which is their right, just don't expect me to worship at the altar of Swarovski.

Bill Atwood said:

First, from my following these manufactuters and their prices over the last decade or so, I certainly don't see where Leica or Zeiss decided to lower their prices. Instead, whenever Swaro delivers a new product to the market they just set the price 20-40% more than the other brands.

Also, the last sentence of the quote should probably read "... people who will pay anything for what they believe to be the best."

In other words Swaro is taking advantage of snob appeal. Which is their right, just don't expect me to worship at the altar of Swarovski.

Click to expand...

Especially on complex and not tranparent markets (neutral reviews are rare and there isn´t much interest to investigate by e.g. consumer organisations because the market of high end optics is too small and not of common interest) there are buyers who orientated on the highest price to make sure they get the best. This is not only snobbish but surely naive. This behaviour is also quite common on other markets (e.g. cars) where emotions are in the play for some reasons. For many of us birding is so important that we tend to spend very much money to the hobby.

But Swarovski still think about other markets as you can see with their SLC and Habicht bino series where the price-performance ratio is on a fair niveau IMHO.

Steve

Bill Atwood said:

First, from my following these manufactuters and their prices over the last decade or so, I certainly don't see where Leica or Zeiss decided to lower their prices. Instead, whenever Swaro delivers a new product to the market they just set the price 20-40% more than the other brands.

Also, the last sentence of the quote should probably read "... people who will pay anything for what they believe to be the best."

In other words Swaro is taking advantage of snob appeal. Which is their right, just don't expect me to worship at the altar of Swarovski.

Click to expand...

I usually make a choice on optical and mechanical quality and the price only enters the equation after I have made a shortlist, unless the price differential is significant. I suspect that many if not most birders tend to make a high end purchase every 10 years or so, and hence cost is not the main issue.

Swarovski gear seems to be finished to a very high standard which I guess is part of the image. External perfection surely suggests that the optics are near perfect. Given how hard it can be to test an optic in a store, this must be a good reason for high sales of Swarovski gear. I do think the EL series are not too unreasonably priced (in the UK) but the scopes are massively overpriced IMO.

Given that Leica have introduced more expensive compact bins, I can only assume that Swarovski will up the price of their own compacts to assure nervous consumers that they are still the best.

Leif

Not wanting to toss any gas on the fire but I was at my local optics store on Saturday to look at the Swaro scopes. While trying to sell me on the product he told me that Swaro was putting a new price increase into effect on June 1st. I didn't ask the amount as I hadn't looked a Zeiss yet.

-Mike

I'm glad I bought mine two years ago!