[AGWoodard]

Be of good cheer, Pentaxians. Ricoh has a plan and you will be happy.

Oh grow up.

You live in a Pollyanna Pentax World. Perhaps you should take your own advice.

[pentaman]

Next up - Pentax will only sell to those online stores that also collect sales taxes, and have same shipping rates. That should put everyone on the same level playing field.
The price increase is real - looking at new prices on online stores. This means, the price of such used lenses will also go up. With the market share that Pentax has, and potential of people leaving the brand (or in best case, people not buying Pentax anew), how is Pentax planning to increase the market share?
I am beginning to think Pentax is a big money-laundering scheme for Ricoh,

[DeadJohn]

The price gyrations over relatively short periods make it confusing to be a Pentax customer. Should I buy now or wait? Will the price drop the day after I buy? Can I find a dealer who still has an old price? I want to buy one lens now and another in a few months - how should I time my purchase?

Congrats, Ricoh, you've turned Pentax photography into daytrading

[krebsy75]

Nice! +1

Congrats, Ricoh, you've turned Pentax photography into daytrading

[jatrax]

Unfortunately, I'm not sure the product line, as it exists right now, commands pricing substantially higher than it was last week. Sales were not emptying the shelves at great levels as it was ... what will it look like over the next few weeks?

And that is exactly my point. The stocking requirements set up by Hoya destroyed the dealer network and forced remaining dealers into a death spiral of cutting margin in order to keep the volume up on a line which was not moving anyway. This new policy will help to rebuild the dealer network so Pentax is not relying on a handful of online retailers. Hoya thought all they needed were a few high volume online dealers to sell cameras. It just does not work that way, even today. Many buyers want to pick the camera up and see how it feels. They want a sales person to reassure them this is the right buy for them. You cannot get that online. Most sales will still be made online in this category, but the sales decision is often made in a real store. And without that experience Pentax will not get any significant traction.

Yes, this looks bad in the short term but if you want a healthy Pentax you need to fix the problems and this is a start. And only a start, there is a long list of other issues such as production quality, service, lens line up, full frame and so on but it looks to me like Ricoh is making a start at tackling those.

I'm not buying any new lenses at those prices, but I also do not think those prices will last. Once things stabilize prices will float to a level that makes sales and money for both dealers and Pentax. And makes Pentax competitive. These issues were not created in a few months and they are not going to get fixed in a few months either.

[bobmaxja]

In reading all this message , I tooke time also to look at signature. It's seem most of us have very good DSLR and a lot of lenses. Do we need more? Probably for many of us , no
Let's go and take some photo. I am sure we can take great photo in 99.5 % of the time .
Remember we cannot put 2 lenses at the same time on one DSLR,

Hope we can see you on the street

[jw48335]

Minolta, Kodak, etc. Etc.

This is not an industry that tolerates mistakes like this. The proper path would have been to take a margin hit on their cut$ to keep competitive while at the same time working out their problems. This path craps on their already small customer base, as well as setting up all the new k5 rebate customers for a perfect wtf moment. Ricoh is well into the red, they don't have the capital to pull this off.

[krebsy75]

There isn't enough market share for more than three manufacturers of interchangeable lens cameras. It's up to Sony, Pentax, Fuji and Olympus to duke it out.

If I were a betting man...

[eddie1960]

Another interesting read of Sony's SURE program: For Sony, No Discounts Means Stress-Free Shopping - NYTimes.com

In my opinion, it is much too soon for Pentax to consider this. They should have focused on improving the product line first. It just seems like a backwards approach to doing business. Photo enthusiasts are not going to pay a premium for Pentax products. It's just not going to happen with the options available from Canon and Nikon.

Pentax is in desperate need of SIGNIFICANT product home runs and marketing excellence. The next 6-12 months should prove interesting.

Funnily enough Sony ran a program like this for a long time in Canada. They were very strict on the premium product and in fact rarely even made a discounter an authorized dealer (carrying XBR and other premium product you were bound by an agreement like this. the extra margins gained allowed the retailer to employ knowledgeable staff to sell it properly. )
Sounds like they are tying to implement the same idea now in the US, and not far off what seems to be the ricoh plan
Difference is at least at the moment Sony actually has dealers in the US

[7samurai]

i'm in a holding pattern until Photokina. If this was to help the B&M stores, I get it. However, if they want to price at the same level as canikon, then where's the new technology, services and warranties to offset the price. So far it's been a one-way street.

I'm going out to shoot and enjoy my Pentax camera.

[ElJamoquio]

See above. Replacements lenses ought to have new technology such as ring motors and long warranties. This establishes price, value comes with new features.

My opinion: not very likely. But we'll see. There aren't any lenses with similar features listed in the roadmap for 2012. There is the 24-75mm listed in 2013 (or 18-85, etc) but if that's a 2.8 it'll be some combination of huge/poor IQ/expensive.

More unsolicited opinion: I think raising the price of the less-featured lens so that it doesn't sell well (or is a new price point for the new lens) isn't a good policy.

[krebsy75]

I also have experience working for a hi-fi retailer. Does Bryn Mawr Stereo ring any bells? Tweeter bought them out in 1996.

I also worked for Camera Shop Inc corporate. They were bought out by Ritz in 1999.

[krebsy75]

I noticed that Crutchfield now carries Pentax gear. Crutchfield has always been a value-added reseller that doesn't compete on price.

It's possible Crutchfield's reseller status is in large part to Pentax's new pricing policy.

[Alizarine]

Seeing the explanations of some great posters here, if this move by Ricoh-Pentax will get their products on real shelves in the US and not just online pages soon, then I guess the wait will be worth it. I just went back to look at local prices here in my place (where only ONE store chain distributes Pentax), and our prices here are still higher than US prices. For example: DA* 50-135 here is still $100 more expensive than in the US, and the DA* 60-250 is $217 more than it is in the US. The price in your place will always be better than mine.

[Docrwm]

I noticed that Crutchfield now carries Pentax gear. Crutchfield has always been a value-added reseller that doesn't compete on price.

It's possible Crutchfield's reseller status is in large part to Pentax's new pricing policy.

Crutchfield is like B&H and Adorama - a couple of stores (in VA as opposed to NYC) with the vast majority of their sales online. This is not a move into B&M stores IMHO. Also, is this a new line for Crutchfield or is it merely that you just noticed that they carry Pentax?