[E-man]

I live in a medium sized city of maybe a million people. When I moved here in 2004, there were two Ritz Camera locations. One closed in about 2009 and the other went out with the big shut-down of 2012. I miss being able to handle camera gear before I purchase and I would love to be able to buy stuff locally but I don't think there's a brick-and-mortat camera store within 100 miles of me. The only places that even sell cameras around here are big box retailers and their selection stinks and their salespeople don't know jack about what they're selling. I think it's telling that up until a couple of years ago the electronics department at Walmart displayed cameras at the front to draw customers in. Now, they're off to one side and they've got only about six or eight models to choose from. The front display space is now taken up with cell phones and tablets. It's really a sad state of affairs.

[SpecialK]

That was video games that killed remote control cars and planes and plastic models. It also doesn't help that with the less people building plastic models, the price of the model goes up. 20 years ago, a model that sold for $8-$10 is now selling for $30.

It's true plastic modeling started dying in the late 90s; however, we still had a lot of $15 models, though the fancier Tamiya brand is more expensive. Business was good up to about 2007 - we even upgraded the warehouse layout - but it went into a noticeable and steady decline thereafter. My 3 phone people got laid off as the web popularity replaced phone orders. Other employees who quit were not replaced. Recently, sometimes I would only place 3 or 4 orders a day (maybe 15 phone calls of any type). Selling on Amazon helped for a while as Amazon orders could number in the hundreds per day. Emails went from several dozen to maybe one dozen a day. The Christmas season used to start around Thanksgiving, but as Black Friday became Cyber Monday and then even more spread out, it just went away.

[bigdavephoto]

It's true plastic modeling started dying in the late 90s; however, we still had a lot of $15 models, though the fancier Tamiya brand is more expensive. Business was good up to about 2007 - we even upgraded the warehouse layout - but it went into a noticeable and steady decline thereafter. My 3 phone people got laid off as the web popularity replaced phone orders. Other employees who quit were not replaced. Recently, sometimes I would only place 3 or 4 orders a day (maybe 15 phone calls of any type). Selling on Amazon helped for a while as Amazon orders could number in the hundreds per day. Emails went from several dozen to maybe one dozen a day. The Christmas season used to start around Thanksgiving, but as Black Friday became Cyber Monday and then even more spread out, it just went away.

It's just discouraging to me the way plastic and resin models and hobby stores in general have gone away like B&M photo stores.


I could go off topic and hijack this thread but instead, I might start a new thread in the general section.

[awscreo]

They can't compete with price or convenience of online shopping. I just visited a very nice small photo shop with a ton of vintage glass. They sold say takumar 50 1.4 in a pretty worn out condition to ok condition for 120-150$. You can get similar or better ones off ebay for 80-100$, plus in most cases with no tax, and delivered to your house. Sure it's cool to walk around and window shop cool glass, but actually buying stuff there didn't seem like a smart financial decision..

[old4570]

The plan is to Tax at the purchase point .. ( Australia )
So for Ebay that might mean that PayPal collects 10% GST and passes it onto the Gooberment ...
Unfortunately for some of us we have no choice but to source OS ... As what we wan't or need is simply not available locally , or the prices are inflated so much ( and out of step with international prices ) that it is not economically viable to buy local .
Just look at camera prices in Australia back in the 70's 80's and 90's ...
Consumers were being ripped a new one buying local ... Almost every hobby / interest was seriously inflated by our isolation .
I hated reading OS magazines and seeing what the rest payed for stuff I wanted . ( Especially cameras )
For a long time there Australia really was the lucky country for some ( a small minority ) .. They could almost charge anything they wanted for their wares ..
Things are different now , joe six pack can source his wants from the same place as the retail outlets .. ( And dont they want to cry foul over that )

Rant over ...

[p38arover]

I don't think there's a brick-and-mortar camera store within 100 miles of me.

We have a photographic store in a nearby (5km away) shopping centre (you'd call it a mall). They carry Nikon and Canon but not Pentax. They also do film processing.

[pathdoc]

Small datum: I visited two camera stores in Sydney, Australia (DigiDirect and George's) which had both a K-1 and at least one APS-C DSLR on their shelves (DigiDirect's was a KS-1, of all things). DigiDirect also had a D-FA*70-200, a DA*200 and a DA Limited 20-40 lens; I forget what George's had.

Paxton's, however, had closed the CBD branch where I got my films developed this time last year, though there were other branches elsewhere. Sydney, however, is one of those places where I think changes being made by foolish local governments are pushing rates up to beyond-stupid levels and making conditions for smaller businesses untenable; a military book store I used to frequent quite a lot ten years ago moved to Penrith shortly thereafterwards and then subsequently shut.

[p38arover]

I was in Penrith Plaza (western Sydney) today so stopped by Camera House to have a look at their offerings. They have quite a good range of Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Lumix, cameras and lenses (plus Sigma and Tamron for those brands) - but nothing for Pentax. They have a reasonable range of general accessories, too.

They even had Nikon KeyMission cameras and, surprisingly, the Ricoh Theta S!

The price of the Canikon stuff was shockingly high to me - maybe not for others, e.g. A$3,500 for a 5D Mk III body, A$3,000 for D500 body.