Oberwerk has experienced tremendous growth over the last two years. During this time, we’ve been able to to manage our supply chain and overseas shipping to keep our warehouse well-stocked most of the time. The cost of sending cargo by air has increased greatly, but we’ve been able to absorb that for now because 1) shipping cost for our larger/heavier binoculars is still a small percentage of their cost and 2) less-expensive models are relatively-lightweight, so shipping cost is still a manageable percentage of their cost. So even though many of our most popular binocular models keep running out of stock, we’re bringing in air shipments as often as possible to prevent long back-orders. Customers that placed out-of-stock binocular orders in November should receive those orders before Christmas. For orders placed in December for out-of-stock products- we’ll do our best, but we can’t guarantee delivery by Christmas.
The situation is different with our popular Model 5000 aluminum tripods. The cost of air freight is prohibitive because these items are rather heavy, yet sell for a relatively-low price. In fact the current cost of air freight, plus the cost of the tripod, exceeds the selling price of the tripod! So we’ve had to put our most recent order of 5000 tripods on a sea shipment. We’re hoping to have these sometime in January. We know the 5000 is a popular choice for several of our binoculars, so what to do if you can’t wait until late Jan.? For binoculars up to 10 lbs., our Model 4000 (which uses the 5000 head), will work almost as well as the 5000- and is $70 less. If you were considering the 5000 for one of our XL Binocular Telescopes, we highly recommend the TR3 hardwood tripod instead. While the cost is over $300 higher, the TR3 is much steadier and is the best choice for binoculars that are capable of such high magnifications.
Please contact us by phone or email if you have any questions about availability, as well as best mounting choices for our various binocular models.
