well put Bruce.
If 'we' follow some of the retail thinking then we will conceivably end up with one or two giant stores, that for the first week or two will be the cheapest around. 'Competition' will come from another store that is owned by the big guy, thus removing any real competition.....dont scoff....its happening here now, as it no doubt is over there.
Hopefully one of the things to emerge out of the current finacial crisis will be a return to smaller entities in retail as a few of the monoliths fall over on oh so skinny margins, which at the end of the day do not do anyone any good. Skinny margins also mean the manufacturer is being screwed senseless, which in turn means the worker feels the pain and so on it goes.
I hope some balance can be achieved (restored), but everything is so skewed and murky at the moment with bail outs that it is hard to see who is a genuine corporate contributor to society worthy of support and who is simply cashing in on the governments fears.
I am as guilty as anyone, I shop around for the best price, but my last two major purchases (K200d & Pentax 17-70...3 months apart) have been from brick & mortar shops...and I am glad to say....at very competitive prices. Not the cheapest, but close enough to make the decision easy. This was very different from when I bought my K20 9 months ago, the stores had their retail and were not interested in talking price....so I bought on-line at a saving of several hundred dollars, something I didn't actually like doing, but the price was too good to ignore.
As I say, here's hoping for some much needed balance.
Happy New Year.
Grant
PS: George: hang in there mate, there's a dealer out there (somewhere) who actually wants your business....finding him/her is just taking a bit more time.
