Originally posted by RonHendriks1966 Stores are so history
That is what Dell said to Jobs when Apple's fist store was opened.
Comedy aside, Jobs was right from day one because potential users never had a chance to try an Apple product before buying because dealers were not stocking them!
They went into retail not because of Jobs' vanity, as everyone misunderstood the move, but because of the simple fact that there were less Macs per square retail metre in the US (and in the world) than depleted uranium! Jobs knew all Apple's product were designed superbly, that there are no such products elsewhere, they resonate strongly and create powerful emotional feedback. It was crucial to give those products in hands of customers, let them experience, and that act would change customers mind. That is the short story of their success.
Similarly, there is no chance one would shoot with a Canon camera again if the K-3 or 645Z was there to try, and all limiteds to see. Store presence also reaffirms buyer that company is very serious about its products, and will not disappear overnight. It shows commitment. (Then when I read Thom Hogan advocating Pentax and small companies to stick to online sales, I see complete nonsense.)
Leica faced this same problem, and they still do —
regular camera stores are not interested to stock their cameras. How can people appreciate cameras, lenses, the quality, the hole Leica story if they have no idea about them and the context of the selling place is entirely wrong? Because it is the truth that people change their mind when observing a real product in front of them and holding it in their hands as opposed to impersonal online shopping which gives no emotional feedback.
In everyday camera stores, a Canon or a Nikon camera is given in buyer's hand before he or she opened their mouth. First tactile contact was Nikon or Canon, their lenses, sales pitch. Pentax stands no chance. Because the clerk gave those first, they appear recommended buys in buyer's head. Buyer has no idea he or she was manipulated but believes was respected.
By now Leica'd be gone, but several years ago they have changed the management and started to think for themselves: issued the 35mm M9, opened stores, etc. Now launching a new system, etc. Stores helped all that.
In today's screwed up economy,
having stores is a small company's only ticket to be on the radar of human experience in the real world. Because in economy of large numbers, no one else cares about small companies, and won't stock them. Ricoh Imaging pours lots of efforts to talk to independent camera stores in the west, but I think part of that effort should be used for their own retail presence.
The most intriguing fact with retail outlets is that sales inside them can be small, and one would say, totally unjustified cost? Nope — wrong! They should not be treated as separate profit centres — rather as a part of the complex sales channel, which often todays ends in online sales. After a visit to a shop,
a customer remembers the experience, knows the value, and next time online, a camera, or a lens,
will end up in the online shopping cart. Bam! All done, and the retail outlet has fully served its purpose and surpassed the third party camera store inefficiency and their own plots.
Retail and online go had in hand. Ask any designer's brand — they would all be dead by now if they had to rely only on catalogues and Target to sell their stuff.
---------- Post added 05-06-2014 at 08:28 AM ----------
Originally posted by Kunzite To sum this up: there's now this nice thing called "Pentax Akademie". We're not happy, because they should have brand stores as well. If they'll start having brand stores (doubtful, for the moment at least) we'll still not be happy, because there will be another "must have" thing. ..
Not entirely. Akademie is good, but a concept itself is a tactic that Pentax learned a decade or two after the rest of the world. Opening a store is not much of a high philosophy either, and it would show Ricoh Imaging is rather learning fast to live in today's world and has a marketing goal, actually.
I do hope I shall be proven right, because it seems to me stores are next logical step and I can see them in India and in China coming before anywhere else (they have one in Japan).