Originally posted by Winder So every other camera company including Lomography can pull it off, but Ricoh just doesn't have the resources? The largest show in North America isn't worth the trouble?
So every other camera company is making a mistake by wasting resources on this show? Ricoh is smarter than all of them?
I sure Ricoh is considering what they "could have been doing", but part of the criticism is that (so far) they always end up doing nothing.
I was at a happy hour/meet & greet for local professional photographers and had lady ask if the K-3 was a film camera. I wanted to slap her. She does over 30 weddings a year starting at $4,000 and has no clue, but its really not her fault. Neither Hoya nor Ricoh have invested in marketing.
We keep going over the same ground. They're not going to spend money on 'marketing' at small, regional events like Photo Plus Expo in the USA at this time.
Originally posted by cali92rs Yes, their money could be better spent elsewhere...
But are they spending that money elsewhere? I don't see anything on TV, radios, internet banners, bus stops, weekly flyers/mailers etc.
I also don't see them in stores.
So I agree that this may not be the best place to spend their marketing money...but if not here, then what are they spending it on?
What marketing money? They're not going to market here very much at all. They haven't yet done any of the things that come
before marketing money is spent, like inventory product, hire salespeople, answer their own phones, build their own websites, run their own webstore, perform their own warranty repairs, support B&M dealers with realistic dealer credit and dealer ordering terms and co-op ads and demo units and workshops - so
why would they spend tens of thousands of dollars stimulating demand they don't have any infrastructure to meet?
I've said this before -
they're not going to compete with Canon and Nikon and Sony and Fuji in the USA on the terms (high volume, low profit margin) that competition would require. We keep looking at what the other companies are doing - even Lomography - and asking why Pentax isn't doing it, too - over and over and over. The same people keep asking the same question every time the same situation comes around on the calendar and Ricoh does the same thing they did last time.
They're competing on product quality and features at a price point - and that's it. We're not paying for any marketing expense when we buy a Pentax product. That's the deal. If you want a bunch of trade show booths and magazine ads to feed your pack membership mentality you'll need to use another brand and pay for the marketing expense when you buy it.
Ricoh thought they'd come into the USA and the Dealers would welcome Pentax back like it was their 25th High School Reunion. Jim Malcolm got kicked to the curb. So they bought a large booth and a conference room at CP+ and presented their new, high-profit-margin plan. Their largest remaining independent B&M Dealer (in St. Louis) outright discontinued Pentax - and how many new Dealers have they added? I hear crickets.
For the time being - and possibly for a very long time - this is a word-of-mouth, internet-marketing brand (read Amazon, Adorama and B&H) in North America. That is all. 2% global market share won't cut it here - there isn't enough cash flow to support the expenses of growing the brand while also avoiding hemorrhagic losses.
We bought Pentax. This is part of the deal.