Swarovski price reductions from Monday 1st July? (1 Viewer)

[OrangeO]

Yes but are these discounts of all binocular brands given by the dealer or the brands?

Both dealers and brands have discounted binoculars. You can shop around for the best price, ask dealers to price match, or wait for items to go on sale. The S in MSRP stands for "suggested" for a reason, the more you're paying the more less likely it is expected to pay full price.

So the question remains, is the decision of Swaro's price reduction driven by their 75 years or by lower (but still more than acceptable) sales.
IMHO it is the latter.

I have seen a lot of brands celebrating anniversaries and this is the first I've seen where they celebrate with sales and discounts. Even before the anniversary promotion you could get prices close to the current sales price by asking the dealer for a discount. To me the promo is just an official sanctioning of the discounts dealers were already offering.

Shopping around is key.

 

[MJ73]

I wonder if ZEISS and Leica will follow with price drops. I am tempted to finally add the 115 mm to my BTX and have the 95 mm for the ATX.

 

[OrangeO]

I wonder if ZEISS and Leica will follow with price drops. I am tempted to finally add the 115 mm to my BTX and have the 95 mm for the ATX.

BH has a feature where they can send you prices to your email because the manufacturer doesn't allow them to display them. You can get over $600 off the Noctivid 8x42 or over $400 off a Victory HT 10x54. The Victory SF 8x42 is only slightly discounted. You ask your preferred dealer to price match. There are deals abound for all brands.

 

[jan van daalen]

Both dealers and brands have discounted binoculars. You can shop around for the best price, ask dealers to price match, or wait for items to go on sale. The S in MSRP stands for "suggested" for a reason, the more you're paying the more less likely it is expected to pay full price.

I have seen a lot of brands celebrating anniversaries and this is the first I've seen where they celebrate with sales and discounts. Even before the anniversary promotion you could get prices close to the current sales price by asking the dealer for a discount. To me the promo is just an official sanctioning of the discounts dealers were already offering.

Shopping around is key.

Hi O,

I don't know how it goes in the US but here only Leica has a brick store where you only can buy at MSRP. All three A brands have a webshop where you can order but only at MSRP.
Taken into account that the profit margin for a dealer is between 15% (thermal) and between 25 and 32% for optics there is not so much space for discounting.
Down here the Birding Protection Club give members 10% discount so every dealer does the same. Do the math. There is no space.
The 'S' is regulated by Law. Down here it is forbidden by Law to have fixed prices. No brand can tell me to keep a certain price level. That's up to the dealer. So the brands don't give discounts to the customer. If Swaro lowers its MSRP with 10%, the dealer gets it also on his purchage price. The margin stays the same for him.
Service to the customer is paid by margin. No margin no service. Result: compaining customers that the service from the dealer sucks. Result: short term vision of the dealer who will loose customers because his name goes down the drain.

Price isn't key.

Jan

 

[Hermann]

So the question remains, is the decision of Swaro's price reduction driven by their 75 years or by lower (but still more than acceptable) sales.
IMHO it is the latter.

There is a third possibility: They or another of the big players will come out with a stabilised binocular in the near future.

Hermann

 

[MiddleRiver]

There is a third possibility: They or another of the big players will come out with a stabilised binocular in the near future.

Hermann

Given how standard (and minaturized) the tech is in camera bodies and lenses, this seems like the next tech to go mainstream with binos.

 

[jan van daalen]

There is a third possibility: They or another of the big players will come out with a stabilised binocular in the near future.

Hermann

Yes, but.......wouldn't they shoot themselves in the foot??
On the other hand, Leica didn't believed in digital camera's, MagLite not in LED etc. Look where they ended up.

 

[Hermann]

Yes, but.......wouldn't they shoot themselves in the foot??

Or would they? I'm not so sure. Stabilisation is the main missing feature to further improve the performance of binoculars. Another two percent of transmission or even wider fields of view won't cut it.

And given that the latest Chinese binoculars have gotten uncomfortably close in optical performance, introducing stabilised binoculars seems me to be a logical step.

On the other hand, Leica didn't believed in digital camera's, MagLite not in LED etc. Look where they ended up.

Too true. And neither Swarovski nor Zeiss seem me to be as conservative as Leica and Maglite.

Hermann

 

[dries1]

Stabilization is necessary for the geriatric community who like to view with the glass, unless the young keep the interest in optics in the west, conventional glass will become less popular.
No interest to to buy a chinese conventional binocular (from a core chinese company - SRBC etc.) here, just think when they build a reliable stabilized binocular, small moving parts etc. I wont care, I will long be dead.

 

[jan van daalen]

The glass is always half full.
An CEO from Swaro told me ones that they look 15 years ahead. What if they make a mistake......
We live in interesting times.

 

[tenex]

There is a third possibility: They or another of the big players will come out with a stabilised binocular in the near future.

This would take a lot of courage, given such limited adoption of existing models. And the overall trend today is toward smaller and lighter bins. And what is one actually going to get for 3-4x the money, from a company that's never even done stabilization before? Presumably alpha image quality, but surely that's not what's been keeping the general public from buying IS bins. Anything else seems very doubtful: better IS than Canon? More normal FOV, how?

I assume all these hints of rumors involve Swarovski, but I doubt they'll ever recover the investment they've made already in AX... and they otherwise seem very keen to limit their range, and discontinue models that aren't profitable enough. Very confusing, to me.

 

[Hermann]

rrt

This would take a lot of courage, given such limited adoption of existing models. And the overall trend today is toward smaller and lighter bins.

Stabilised binoculars needn't be big and heavy like the big Canons.

And what is one actually going to get for 3-4x the money, from a company that's never even done stabilization before?

Zeiss made stabilised binoculars before. Granted, I don't think they'd stick to the mechanical stabiliser should they make a stabilised binocular. But Zeiss has got a cooperation going with Sony, and Leica with Panasonic. No need to reinvent the wheel. The technology is well-established and mature.

Presumably alpha image quality, but surely that's not what's been keeping the general public from buying IS bins. Anything else seems very doubtful: better IS than Canon? More normal FOV, how?

What's keeping the general public from buying IS bins is an interesting question for another thread. Better ergonomics, more "normal" shape, better optics than many of the IS bins on the market, a decent field of view, a well-known, long-established brand name.

I assume all these hints of rumors involve Swarovski, but I doubt they'll ever recover the investment they've made already in AX... and they otherwise seem very keen to limit their range, and discontinue models that aren't profitable enough. Very confusing, to me.

Who knows what going on there?

Hermann

 

[jan van daalen]

I would like to see the NLpure with a built in thermal before anything else from Swaro.

 

[OrangeO]

I would like to see the NLpure with a built in thermal before anything else from Swaro.

What do you expect from a stabilized NL Pure that you don't get from a stabilized binocular from Canon or another brand? Also wouldn't the cost be astronomical in typical Swarovski fashion? Fujinon has an IS model for over $6,000 and at that price you're in Nikon WX territory. Seems like a price range with few buyers and huge R&D budgets.

 

[PW42]

Talking to the people on the Swarovski stand at the Birdfair today, I walked away with two impressions relevant to this thread. Although nothing was specifically said. This is on a FWIW basis.

The first is that the price changes are a realignment and not just for the 75th anniversary year.

The second is that they are working on an IS binocular but will only release it if and when its best in class and not suffering from some of the flaws in its competitors ("not a brick", better optical quality and more ergonomic were mentioned). Timescale 2+ years.

 

[jan van daalen]

What do you expect from a stabilized NL Pure that you don't get from a stabilized binocular from Canon or another brand? Also wouldn't the cost be astronomical in typical Swarovski fashion? Fujinon has an IS model for over $6,000 and at that price you're in Nikon WX territory. Seems like a price range with few buyers and huge R&D budgets.

First, it is all about patent rights, so it takes a while for Swaro to go around that in development.
Second, in this class the price is not an issue. There is room for Mercedes and there is room for Dacia.
Swaro is active in the first 'divsion'.
It is what Swaro told PW42.

 

[dalat]

The second is that they are working on an IS binocular but will only release it if and when its best in class and not suffering from some of the flaws in its competitors ("not a brick", better optical quality and more ergonomic were mentioned). Timescale 2+ years.

That is interesting news indeed! But me too I dread the price tag. They charge already 3500 € for a regular muggle binocular and 4600 € for the gimmicky AX, so what will a good IS bin cost? 5000 € ?

 

[jan van daalen]

That is interesting news indeed! But me too I dread the price tag. They charge already 3500 € for a regular muggle binocular and 4600 € for the gimmicky AX, so what will a good IS bin cost? 5000 € ?

IMHO there a massiv lot of less components in a IS compared to the AX, so........
Further, the knowledge/technology of the IS is well known, the AX wasn't.

Jan

 

[Viewerinsweden]

I went to the local store to have a look at the new NL pures yesterday and asked how long the prices will be reduced. They answered that Swarovski has not set any enddate and this is rather a permanent reduction for this year since they realized that their prices were too high. No official statement though.