Megaloblatta
Active member
Maven's business model of direct to consumer seems to not apply outside the USA, as there are now Maven retailers in the EU, Australia and the UK. The UK one is Nature Observation UK (Maven Optics) and the others are Maven Binoculars - Optics-Trade and The Modern Hunter Australia I live in the UK and recently wanted to buy a pair of Maven B1.2s. Unfortunately the UK retailer does not sell the black/grey version I wanted and has no plans to do so. The EU retailer said they could order a pair but it would take about 3 months to get them, and the Australian retailer said they were not permitted to sell Maven products outside Australia and New Zealand. So, the only choice was to order from Maven USA. This was very easy and the sales team were very helpful and friendly. The binoculars were sent by UPS and arrived in 5 days. One issue though is that UPS did not want to deliver them until import fees (Duty and VAT) had been paid, but this wasn't obvious as they didn't request the fee by email. I ended up phoning their UK Customer Services and paying the fee, and they delivered them the same day. The total cost of the binoculars in GBP was £1135 (£922 payment to Maven + £213 for import fees to UPS). If I had purchased them from the UK distributor the cost would have been c. £1100 (£1050 + c. £50 (extra cost for the black/grey version + duty)). Incidentally, I don't know why people complain about Maven's packaging. Yes, it is very simple (an egg box type carton inside a printed sleeve), but surely the contents are the important part, not the box!