Originally posted by Sol Invictus Your last paragraph goes a long way to explain why so many stores are reluctant to carry Pentax, even if there is interest.
It's funny, but I initially read your post to mean:
'lots of camera stores are reluctant to carry Pentax because they know it will steal sales away from higher margin cameras from other brands'
not
'local camera stores are reluctant to carry Pentax because too many people are just likely to handle the camera in-store but buy online'.
I think both statements are probably accurate
However the second statement really applies to lots of brands, not just Pentax. I'm sure Canon and Nikon users do the same thing.