Originally posted by ElJamoquio Shelf space?
What % of DSLR sales are at a physical retailer?
What % of beginner DSLR sales are at a physical retailer?
What % of beginner DSLR sales to whoever this-target-market-is are at a physical retailer?
Seems like those %'s are low and getting lower, but I could be wrong. I'm lucky, there's a Pentax retailer in San Jose. The one retailer in San Francisco closed. That's one in the SFBay area, population 8 million or so, and if you live in San Francisco (where perhaps this target market is), you have to drive an hour (if there's no traffic) to get to a retailer.
Who is going to do that when Amazon has such a great return policy?
Ricoh and Pentax have been pushing for physical retail spots lately, and if this camera is a good enough value, they might be able to do it... but so far I haven't seen their effort succeeding in ILC's.
You and I are US-centric. But here, camera stores are vanishing. Most SLRs are probably sold over the internet -- maybe after handling in a big box store. However, in Europe and Asia, there are still camera stores with products that have shelf space. My understanding is that in Japan, Pentax still has a fair amount of availability in photography stores.
But the US is a tough market. A lot of the US is pretty rural and fairly distant from urban areas where camera stores are available. I think the bigger thing is just advertising to get their name out there.