Telescope Reviews: From the Editor's Desk: Astronomy Biz Shakeout

My business is marketing consultation, and what I do for my clients is what many astronomy dealers refuse to do. I'll get into that, but it stems from the fact that a hobbyist entering the business may not already have a retail background. There are many books about retailing and planning, but most are only read by middle or upper management of large corporations, regardless of the fact that most small entrepreneurs should be the target audience.

A few simple things could be growing the business of every retailer among his clientele, as well as growing it:
1.do a regular mailing with close-outs, sale prices, promotional items and new arrivals.
2.invest in SEO (search engine optimization) lookups for your website.
3.Debug your website. Half of the ones I go on don't work right and have blind traps.
4.Computerize your business. Have everything you do be done with a computer. You will obtain truthful data about margins, sales, overhead, etc. on a daily basis.
5.Do a mass e-mailing weekly or bi-weekly to all your mailing list. Some of them will be filtered out but enough will be read--especially if your website allows people to sign up for it. Send the same info you'd send in a mailing, but make it more current, with new arrivals and clearance items, temporary coupons, limited offers, and a personal note.
6.Manage the inventory. Dump what doesn't sell, and buy more of what does. If your entire inventory doesn't turn at least 4x a year, there's a lot of dead stock. Are you a retailer, or a museum of astronomical memorabilia? Don't love the stock--if it doesn't sell, don't have it in stock. On the other hand, try very hard to stock what people want to buy, not just what you want to sell.
7.Make your store a destination store where people will travel long distances to visit. Advertize in any/all astronomy publications, websites, club newsletters, etc. that have relevance for your customer base.
8.Do private label. Buy-ins are small with a lot of companies. This can increase margin easier than any other technique.
9.decide which products to carry based on the interests of the market. If astrophotography is more popular than visual observing, make yourself an expert in this area and carry the products necessary so all your telescopes, spotting scopes, etc. can be used by photographers.
10.Open up more branches in different marketing territories.

I could go on for pages. The point is, DO the things necessary to promote your business. Having air-conditioning, parking, and an open door is NOT enough to gain a clientele and keep them coming back. You have to do more to attract customers, whether new or repeat.

Demographics you can't change. The response to your business you can. But you have to spend money to get money. And you have to spend more money to get more business. I worked in a business that grew from .5million in sales to over 50 million in sales over 20 years, with most of the growth occurring in the last 7. That business catered to a young clientele, a demographic group declining in real numbers, yet our business steadily grew. Each month we tried a new way to attract more customers, and discarded the ones that didn't work while keeping the ones that did.

The same graying clientele that supports the astronomy business also buys new cars, plasma TVs, and lots of other expensive toys. If they're not buying YOUR expensive toys, why not? Maybe you don't have them to sell?

And if you want to promote the hobby among the youth, do you have quality inexpensive products to sell to this market?

The International DarkSky association can only do so much. Get involved in your local area, and target the light pollution offenders one at a time. Sometimes, simply inviting people to an astronomy party will bring them out and you can point out how the lights make astronomy difficult while they're there--and suggest a solution. Who knows, you might get some customers and some allies in the war against light pollution.

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Don Pensack
12.5" Truss Dob, 5" Maksutov
Sustaining Lifetime IDA member, TeleVue junkie