[geekette]

I'm a bit confused by something you posted in another thread yesterday. about buying a DA 55-300 which is now priced up to its MSRP of $429.95. Adorama and B&H both now have it listed online for this price.
But, For the last 2 years it has been "click here to see price" and up pops $349.99. that is what I paid for it 2 years ago.

I read that before I looked into buying one. I saw $429 and was expecting to see a lower price when I added to cart--well I didn't.. It was STILL $429 and I was like NO WAY.. Then I e-mailed Adorama and complained and told them I'd pay $399 and they came back and said they can offer me $349.

[eddie1960]

I read that before I looked into buying one. I saw $429 and was expecting to see a lower price when I added to cart--well I didn't.. It was STILL $429 and I was like NO WAY.. Then I e-mailed Adorama and complained and told them I'd pay $399 and they came back and said they can offer me $349.

i didn't realise negotiation worked with online retailers. I always negotiate in-store

[lammie200]

...In many cases, anticipating future consumer preferences actually is creating markets. Nobody knows that consumers will buy an absolutely new product when such a product comes out...

I don't want this to become a tug of war - especially for such an esoteric point. Also, although I was educated in marketing I am certainly no expert.

Think about one method companies use to understand markets - focus groups. Why do they use them? To understand if there would be demand (a market) for a product that they hope to develop. There are still ample opportunties for creativeness. I think that you may be giving companies too much credit. They don't create anything in a vacuum. Well, light bulbs and valve tubes might be an exception to that, I suppose.

[Wheatfield]

Did the markets ask for i-Pads before there being any i-Pads? Entrepreneurial creativity is tied to the capacity of anticipating consumer preferences.

Apple has a particularly rabid user/fan base. Apple could market a battery powered turd and the loyalati would buy it, especially if it came in colours other than turd brown. This is not to say it isn't a good product, or that sometimes companies can create a market. It is interesting to note that the i-pad was not the first of it's kind, the tablet computer did exist prior to it, albeit not successfully, so did Apple create a market or did Apple's market buy into it because Steve Jobs told them to buy into it?

[lammie200]

I was thinking along the lines of the Q.
No so much pioneering as much as innovation.

I agree. Was there a market for MILC's before the Q came out? Yes. Was there a market for an ultra small, dainty looking one that could demand a premium price? I think that Hoya/Pentax thought so. They must have done some studies to think so.

[causey]

I don't want this to become a tug of war - especially for such an esoteric point. Also, although I was educated in marketing I am certainly no expert.

Think about one method companies use to understand markets - focus groups. Why do they use them? To understand if there would be demand (a market) for a product that they hope to develop. There are still ample opportunties for creativeness. I think that you may be giving companies too much credit. They don't create anything in a vacuum. Well, light bulbs and valve tubes might be an exception to that, I suppose.

The most innovative people don't care much about focus groups. The idea that focus groups are representative for the way companies understand market corresponds to a conservative view of the dynamics of the market, IMO. As I said, usually, markets behave conservatively: new products are simply incrementally bettered versions of old products.

I was born before the internet, and I never felt the need to check my email before actually having an email account. I certainly didn't want to have a facebook account before there was facebook. Nor did I need or want to have something like a facebook account. Of course, people do want or "need" cell phones, but they couldn't want to use cell phones before someone invented mobile phone technology and before some company risked large amounts of cash to promote it and distribute it. Because some such risks lead to failure. Entrepreneurial anticipation of future preferences is not always right. If it were, there would be no entrepreneurial risk.

Anticipating that people would buy X if X became available on the market is not necessarily discovering a need for X that was "there." Again, sometimes it turns out that an entrepreneur who bet his money on such an anticipation was wrong.

P.S. No war--just arguments.

[jeztastic]

Well it seems like the answer the the OP is "no". Shall we all move on?

Ricoh cameras to be sold by Pentax

[Parallax]

Well it seems like the answer the the OP is "no". Shall we all move on?

Ricoh cameras to be sold by Pentax

Best answer yet.

[lammie200]

Well it seems like the answer the the OP is "no". Shall we all move on?

Ricoh cameras to be sold by Pentax

So, will the converse be true as well? In other words, Pentax won't kill Ricoh (cameras)? Time will tell, I guess.

[bossa]

That seems a very strange way to go for mine.. Will the Ricoh cameras be re-badged as Pentax? How can a company build it's own brand value whilst selling and promoting another brand? Even if they are owned by the same parent company it just seems weird.

[Alizarine]

... I am afraid now.. after they bought Pentax they are talking crazy with their prices.

You Tube

You Tube

This guy probably thought the same thing when he reviewed the K-r...
And after that, Ricoh-Pentax came out with the K-01. And with rumors (which I hope are true) about upcoming 4 bodies this year, I don't think Ricoh plans to kill Pentax with their pricing..

[Colbyt]

That seems a very strange way to go for mine.. Will the Ricoh cameras be re-badged as Pentax? How can a company build it's own brand value whilst selling and promoting another brand? Even if they are owned by the same parent company it just seems weird.

I realize it is a bit different but the last time I checked Coke sold Sprite and Pepsi sold Mountain Dew. Having both under one marketing department is not all that bad.

[hcarvalhoalves]

Apple has a particularly rabid user/fan base. Apple could market a battery powered turd and the loyalati would buy it, especially if it came in colours other than turd brown.

Well, that's a fallacy. Apple market share grew from a statistical error to almost 25% of the entire personal computing market in ten years. That can't be achieved if you only sell to the same fan base.

The irony is, the situation you're describing here fits much more Pentax's case than Apple. Pentax is the one struggling to reach market share with weird new products that no one - outside the core fan base - seems to care about.

[Blue]

The US has always been a “difficult” market for Pentax and this started way back in the 1950’s when Honeywell signed on as the sole US importer of Asahi Pentax.

Honeywell did all sorts of ‘funky” things to some Asahi Pentax products:

- Re-brand the cameras as Honeywell Pentax.
- Made dealership “optional” alterations to camera bodies.
- Stopped the import of some Pentax items, like flashes, as they wanted to protect their own Strobonar flash line.
- Defaced other Pentax accessories by adding Honeywell and removing Asahi.

Thankfully Honeywell left the scene in the mid 1970’s just after the “K” Series line was introduced and Asahi Pentax finally opened a corporate office in the US. (No ‘K” series cameras were defaced by Honeywell.)

That’s almost 20 years of missed opportunity in the US market by Pentax.

Phil.

And before Honeywell, there was Sears & Roebuck that was the Asahi Optical importer.

[gofour3]

And before Honeywell, there was Sears & Roebuck that was the Asahi Optical importer.

Yeah it’s strange how the US Pentax distribution used to work. I actually found an old US address for Asahi Optical (America) Inc. (31 East 28th Street, NYC) from back in the Spotmatic days. Not sure what role it would have played if Honeywell was the importer.

The Pentax Canada Inc. office used to be a few blocks away from where I live in Vancouver. It’s now glass art gallery.

Phil.