[geomez]

I don't agree. I think its main flaw was the price. A cheaper price point would have put it on the radar for a lot of people.

Yep. The fire sale worked on me. I bought two of them!

[6BQ5]

I don't agree. I think its main flaw was the price. A cheaper price point would have put it on the radar for a lot of people.

Yes, the rep acknowledged that price has always been a sore spot in the past, especially for the Q. Now with new lower prices on current products they are seeing better sales. We've seen good movement of product like this when we look at the K-01 and Q lines.

[monochrome]

Yes, the rep acknowledged that price has always been a sore spot in the past, especially for the Q. Now with new lower prices on current products they are seeing better sales. We've seen good movement of product like this when we look at the K-01 and Q lines.

IIRC the GR was originally offered at what was expected to be the STREET price (not the LIST price), which at the time was shocking. It seems to have held its price very well at that level - there's less temptation to 'wait three months for the price to come down'. I think the same was true of the Q7 (though it was maybe even a bit high) and certainly it seems for the K3. If Ricoh / Pent ax keeps doing this it should establish a reputation for fair and constant pricing.

Also kind of helps with the 94 new Store Distributions ifthey believe price will be stable for an entire product turn.

I paid list for my first K-01 and I don't feel bad at all. I've always liked that camera better than anything up to the K3.

[6BQ5]

That's a mistake i think. If they can ensure a presence in a store for 10 years, they should do so!

My thoughts :

Getting into a store, especially a large chain, takes a lot of negotiation which covers everything from displays, to sale terms, to stocking, to ... you name it! If you're going to go through all that work you want the pay off to be significant. It seems, according to the rep, that the pay off is smaller than we would expect and then the store goes out of business. He mentioned some US retailers like Good Guys, Circuit City, and Federated (remember them? ). Compare that to something like Target or Walmart. Those stores are stable and seemingly move a lot of products, including electronics.

Here's the kicker. People go into electronics stores because they want. People go to Target and Walmart because they need to. We may want some electronics but we need food, soap, light bulbs. I have to agree with this. My family goes to Target much more often than Best Buy and the stores are less than 1/4 mile apart. From that perspective I'd love to see Pentax and Ricoh cameras on display in Costco rather than Best Buy.

[bdery]

remember them?

I'm not from the US, so no

Here's the kicker. People go into electronics stores because they want. People go to Target and Walmart because they need to. We may want some electronics but we need food, soap, light bulbs. I have to agree with this. My family goes to Target much more often than Best Buy and the stores are less than 1/4 mile apart. From that perspective I'd love to see Pentax and Ricoh cameras on display in Costco rather than Best Buy.

I understand your point, and Costco is a good example. But when you go buy soap, you don't buy a camera. When you go to a store to buy a camera (if you don't shop online) you'll go to a place where you can compare items, get advice, etc. So you go to a camera or electronics store. You go at walmart if you're shopping a price or if you know what you want already. YMMV.

[monochrome]

My family goes to Target much more often than Best Buy and the stores are less than 1/4 mile apart. From that perspective I'd love to see Pentax and Ricoh cameras on display in Costco rather than Best Buy.

My family goes to Target every single week. We rarely go to Walmart - only under extreme duress. We went to Sam's Club once a month but now we order from Walmart and they deliver. We have never, in 30 years of marriage, gone to an electronics super store. We've gone to an appliance store, to a Stereo store, to a Sears (many times). Early on we went to department stores.

We often go to Target to purchase sheets or Tupperware and also get a knock-together shelf kit or a bicycle or camping gear or an electronic component or a small kitchen appliance on the same trip, intentionally.

[geomez]

Here's my list of retailers most important to for Ricoh/Pentax to get into:
(in order of importance)
Walmart
Target
Costco
Best Buy
Fry's Electronics


The first three are the biggest "buy anything" stores. The last two are the biggest electronics retailers, and unlike those that went bust over the past 20 years, those two are stable.

[ElJamoquio]

Best Buy is not stable. It's incredibly instable.

Fry's is west coast only, only have <50 stores.

[monochrome]

Walmart and Costco dictate terms to the point that manufacturers often must dedicate an entire production line just to supply that retailer - then they just change the deal or discontinue the item. It is VERY HARD for a (comparatively) small manufacturer to do business profitably with Walmart and not easy (but better) with Costco.

BestBuy is in a perpetual state of impending financial collapse.

Target is a GREAT retailer and the credit card fiasco is truly tragic. Target has the best credit security of anyone but it had one crack . . . .

[geomez]

Fry's is west coast only, only have <50 stores

I didn't realize Fry's was so small. Probably because I spend all my time in the western US.

[Uluru]

So that is why we have Q cameras, MX-1, X-5, and other disposables with minimum support. To flood the retailers like Target?
Perhaps a K50/K500 may end up there too (do they?) with a kit lens, to stand next to Canon's and Nikon's junk DSLR food too.

K-3 is hardly an item to be sold in such stores, but that is why online sales and dedicated photo stores support K-3 better in the US (Adorama, B&H)?
I can't tell, because I have not yet seen a K-3 in any place selling Pentax in Australia; on shelves, they still show K5II and K30 only, and of lenses, just kit lenses.
Q is non-existent on shelves. MX-1 non-existent. GR non-existent.

I am not sure who is dictating terms, but it seems camera retailers don't put any more small Pentax cameras on shelves like they did 12-18 months ago. "The experiment is over", it seems to me, which is sad. But I also blame Ricoh for that; their small compacts offer is "weird" compared to what others are offering in the same category. And the MX-1 is priced double than in the US — a big thumb down.

[monochrome]

K500

was designed for mass merchandise retailers.

MX-1 is a very nice camera with which Pentax learned something about articulating LCD's as seen on 645z (just as they learned about mirrorless technology and smaller-magnet SR with K-01). GR is a smash hit - hard to get one even from online retailers. X-5 I know noting about, but I think it is a rebadge.

None of them is a disposable, certainly not anything in the Q system.

[lytrytyr]

MX-1 is a very nice camera with which Pentax learned something about articulating LCD's

Wasn't the X-5 there first, six months earlier?

[derekkite]

Presence in worldwide markets is totally abandoned? Is that not enough?
Being a system camera it will be supported for certain firmware updates for future Pentax lenses and flashes, for example, but as a concept for a line of cameras, or a new production run for worldwide markets, it's gone. Forever.
It's dead. And it was a dead end from its conception. It was designed o be a quick flick. Nothing more. How "in more dead terms" can we describe its deceased state of existence? It's not 6 ft below, but 70 ft? Is that deep enough in the ground to claim it's gone forever?

None of the three disappearing means you throw away your lenses. I suppose that is the answer to your question. The K mount dslr's, the Q mount and 645 mount bodies are alive, even if an individual body isn't.

---------- Post added 05-13-14 at 08:27 PM ----------

Here's my list of retailers most important to for Ricoh/Pentax to get into:
(in order of importance)
Walmart
Target
Costco
Best Buy
Fry's Electronics


The first three are the biggest "buy anything" stores. The last two are the biggest electronics retailers, and unlike those that went bust over the past 20 years, those two are stable.

The local Walmart has the Nikon 1, a couple levels of EOS Canons, some Canon lenses, Fuji, Nikon and Canon long zoom bridge cameras, plus a bunch of point and shoot compacts. They move a surprising amount of hardware. The Source, which was Radio Shack in Canada, has Nikon 5300's, and equivalent Canons.

This is perfect K-50 territory. Stuff like different colors beside the black Nikons or Canons will catch people's eyes.

Can Pentax crank out the numbers to satisfy this market? It is a waste of time to negotiate for the shelf space and not be able to keep it full.

[totsmuyco]

In the 80s I remembered looking at a lot of camera advertisements in National Geographic, Time, Newsweek and Life magazines. Pentax should probably remake all their lenses to at least the WR category. Bodies should also be WR at a minimum. They should capitalize on this strength as a rugged, worry free system and affordable system. With Pentax prices compared to Olympus I would say that Pentax is a grabber.