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06-10-2012, 02:48 AM   #46
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QuoteOriginally posted by Gray Quote
This vacillation makes PRIAC look like they don't know what they're doing. The prices shouldn't have gone up in the first place - for what? A ton of ill will and lost sales.

Loyal customers (retailers and photographers alike) shouldn't be jerked around. It's very bad for business.
Why is every single unhappy poster always 100% sure he knows better than professionals working on this for years? I'm only wondering do people have any self-criticism at all? Or maybe all the unhappy posters have advanced degrees in Finance, Economics and Marketing? I really doubt that. What makes you so confident you are the ones who know how to do it right?

Jerking around with loyal customers is not a good thing for a business. Though trying to go out of your way to please the customers when your company is at the edge of bankruptcy is not a great idea either. Pentax goal should be rebuilding the brand rather than pleasing the customers. Is this such a big surprise this process may be painful?

Many reasonable posters explained that and many more things and also predicted the prices will go back to normal eventually as it is happening now. Maybe the skeptics should go back to that Unilateral pricing thread and read again what other people have said?

Look, all the details have been explained pretty well, the reasoning behind the UPP has been explained numerous times, and yet some people make posts like they have never read or understood those explanations at all.

QuoteOriginally posted by Chaos_Realm Quote
A post on the first page indicates this perfectly, lens broke, a replacement was then needed for a wedding. Sure there was nobody forcing him but really there wasn't many viable alternatives, and they didn't have a couple of months to sit around waiting for the prices to drop back.
What does "no viable alternatives" mean? And how about the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 or an equivalent Sigma, both of which were rated higher than the Pentax offering in several different categories as well as overall being much cheaper too! If one makes the choice in favor of a lens that costs almost 4 times as much as an equivalent (or even better) alternative, there should be a good reason for that. I guess for the affected Pentaxian the Pentax 16-50 did offer something significant enough to offset the huge price difference, i.e. the price was justified.


Last edited by vanyagor; 06-10-2012 at 02:55 AM.
06-10-2012, 03:28 AM   #47
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QuoteOriginally posted by vanyagor Quote
What does "no viable alternatives" mean?
For some, weather sealing is a must and unfortunately it's not viable to buy the other lenses due to the environments they shoot in.

And this is just for this particular focal range lenses.
06-10-2012, 04:03 AM   #48
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Oh dear - how little we understand what makes good business if we think pleasing customers and building the Pentax brand are incompatible. And just how well have the (US) "professionals" done up till now, the self-same ones who predate Hoya's ownership and overseen Pentax's run to the "edge of bankruptcy"?

Last edited by Gray; 06-10-2012 at 04:32 AM.
06-10-2012, 04:23 AM   #49
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I can't believe this thread has got so far and no one has noticed, so I am going to say it..

All the FA lenses went up in price, FF is coming!

06-10-2012, 05:05 AM   #50
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QuoteOriginally posted by Gray Quote
Oh dear - how little we understand what makes good business if we think pleasing customers and building the Pentax brand are incompatible.
But Pentax customers can never be pleased, no matter what

By the way, IIRC Pentax was in black, before Hoya's hostile takeover. It was the K10D (and, in retrospective, maybe knowing what Hoya really wants) who gave them the confidence they could go alone and decided to fight it, until Sparx intervened.
06-10-2012, 07:21 AM   #51
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QuoteOriginally posted by Gray Quote
Oh dear - how little we understand what makes good business if we think pleasing customers and building the Pentax brand are incompatible.
You chose to oversimplify what I have said. I will just repeat, anyone can go back and read exactly what has been said by different people on the topic.

QuoteOriginally posted by Gray Quote
And just how well have the (US) "professionals" done up till now, the self-same ones who predate Hoya's ownership and overseen Pentax's run to the "edge of bankruptcy"?
Professionals making mistakes does not imply an unqualified average Joe will do better. (not having you in particular in mind as I have no idea of your qualifications and I do not want to guess). Thinking one can do better without having necessary qualifications than failed professionals is just being totally ignorant and self-confident which is the worst combo ever that leads to terrible results on practice.
06-10-2012, 07:23 AM   #52
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QuoteOriginally posted by Class A Quote
Actually, because the retailer has made the obscene margin (not Pentax), the retailer should be offering a voucher. Will we see B&H hand out $50 vouchers now?

During all this mess we shouldn't forget that Ned Bunnell said that the UPP had not been enforced by Ricoh. It seems likely that we are just seeing Pentax USA's incompetence on display (once again) and that Pentax/Ricoh is not to blame.
Actually it depends on how many DA series vs FA series they sold. Plus, this is from Ned's comment. It essentially says the UPP was implemented by and enforced by Pentax/Ricoh.


QuoteQuote:
I realize that many of you have expressed concern over our new unilateral pricing policy and specifically the lens pricing. However, the new policy we introduced has both short and longer term implications for our plans in the U.S.


. . .
One user comment I read summarized the situation quite well by saying, I think you are seriously misunderstanding the whole conversation. Pentax has not raised prices. They have required authorized dealers to stick to MSRP [Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price] or some percentage of it (we do not know the exact terms). Pentax is attempting to police their sales channel just as many other manufacturers do. Any additional margin will go to the dealers not Pentax.”
I am guessing they went back and looked at the question about how many DA LTD vs. FA ltd they sold after the UPP hike. However, they didn't answer the question in the blog.

06-10-2012, 08:23 AM   #53
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QuoteOriginally posted by vanyagor Quote
And how about the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 or an equivalent Sigma, both of which were rated higher than the Pentax offering in several different categories as well as overall being much cheaper too! If one makes the choice in favor of a lens that costs almost 4 times as much as an equivalent (or even better) alternative, there should be a good reason for that.
I had to make this choice a year ago. I chose the Pentax for it's weather sealing, and I have certainly used it.
06-10-2012, 08:46 AM   #54
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QuoteOriginally posted by Louicio Quote
I can't believe this thread has got so far and no one has noticed, so I am going to say it..

All the FA lenses went up in price, FF is coming!
Heh, I think it's funny that when the prices first went up, and none of the FA lenses increased in price, it was seen as proof that the full frame was coming. Now it's the fact that the FA lenses DID increase in price that's the indicator that full frame is coming. I'm not trying to pick on you, but it did strike me as funny.
06-10-2012, 09:33 AM   #55
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QuoteOriginally posted by Louicio Quote
I can't believe this thread has got so far and no one has noticed, so I am going to say it..

All the FA lenses went up in price, FF is coming!
But not the D-FA 100, D-FA 50 or FA 35. The latter two even went slightly below pre-April prices.
06-10-2012, 09:53 AM   #56
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QuoteOriginally posted by c-meier Quote
But not the D-FA 100, D-FA 50 or FA 35. The latter two even went slightly below pre-April prices.
Yup, and a couple of FA's are unchanged. It looks like someone wasn't paying attention.
06-10-2012, 09:54 AM   #57
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QuoteOriginally posted by vanyagor Quote
Why is every single unhappy poster always 100% sure he knows better than professionals working on this for years? I'm only wondering do people have any self-criticism at all? Or maybe all the unhappy posters have advanced degrees in Finance, Economics and Marketing?
I don't know what "all the unhappy posters" have, but sometimes it seems like Pentax has none of these.
06-10-2012, 11:55 AM   #58
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QuoteOriginally posted by vanyagor Quote
Many reasonable posters explained that and many more things and also predicted the prices will go back to normal eventually as it is happening now. Maybe the skeptics should go back to that Unilateral pricing thread and read again what other people have said?

Look, all the details have been explained pretty well, the reasoning behind the UPP has been explained numerous times, and yet some people make posts like they have never read or understood those explanations at all.
I've always been in the... "strategy was flawed but workable, but the execution was atrocious" camp myself.

There's no reason a 'unilateral pricing policy' is or should be the equivalent of 'MSRP required policy'. I think everyone's been predicting the prices will come down - how could they NOT come down - but the question becomes.. who

1) approved or
2) required or
3) made the retailers believe that Pentax required

... an MSRP required pricing strategy?

Last edited by ElJamoquio; 06-10-2012 at 03:44 PM.
06-10-2012, 12:05 PM   #59
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QuoteOriginally posted by vanyagor Quote
You chose to oversimplify what I have said. I will just repeat, anyone can go back and read exactly what has been said by different people on the topic.



Professionals making mistakes does not imply an unqualified average Joe will do better. (not having you in particular in mind as I have no idea of your qualifications and I do not want to guess). Thinking one can do better without having necessary qualifications than failed professionals is just being totally ignorant and self-confident which is the worst combo ever that leads to terrible results on practice.
Ricoh had professionals running their 135 camera unit once upon a time and it licensed the k-mount from Asahi Optical. Then along came the auto focus revolution and those professionals at Ricoh at the time took off in their own direction and Ricoh promptly existed the interchangeable lens 135 game quickly. There are plenty of brands that don't exist anymore that were ran by professionals. There is a complex dynamics of engineering, innovation, art and marketing that has to come together. What we are seeing is likely that the asinine mandated UPP based on the MSRP resulted in sales on the DA series bottoming out. I think they are splitting the difference by reducing the prices on the DA series and increasing it marginally on some of the FA series based on those numbers since the mandate. However, until we see how Adorama and a few other reliable Pentax distributors respond, it could just be BH being a maverick.

All that said, I am not a professional lens designer or marketing guru. However, I do know what I am willing to pay for . . . lets say a DA 15 LTD or a 16 - 50. It certainly isn't anywhere near the upp msrp we recently saw. It sure as hell is $1100 for a DA* 16-50 that may or may not have SDM issues much less the UPP $1400 it was listed for at BH last week. Instead of buying the lens I planned this late spring early summer, I picked up a K-5 for < $900.

If anyone wants to make an extra $100 to $1000 donation to Pentax Imaging when they purchase a lens, I am sure the Denver office will provide an address for the checks.

sarcasm

Last edited by Blue; 06-10-2012 at 12:10 PM.
06-10-2012, 02:56 PM   #60
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QuoteOriginally posted by Blue Quote
Plus, this is from Ned's comment. It essentially says the UPP was implemented by and enforced by Pentax/Ricoh.
No, it doesn't.

Ned Bunnell writes himself:
"I would also like to dispel any rumors or misinformed comments that our relationship with Ricoh is in any way responsible for our changes in retail channel pricing policies."
The above quote could hardly be any clearer.

The reason why your quote does not say what you claim it says is that
  1. Bunnell says "...summarized the situation quite well by saying...", i.e., he leaves room for inaccuracies, and
  2. The post he quotes surely does not say "Ricoh" but "Pentax", and I'm pretty sure he automatically translates "Pentax" into "Pentax USA".
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