[JimmyDranox]

Honestly, we can't compare Pentax to Mercedes. Many casual photographers don't know of Pentax. There is some car owner in the developed world who don't know about Mercedes?

But the problem is not the discounts. It's the presence. On the stores offers, on the publications advertisings, even on the net.

Anyway, this problems was discussed many time here. And those rare advertising campaigns made by Pentax are quickly signaled here as some kind of celebration, wherever they are happening, in Europe, US, or Australia. Personally, I don't know what comes more frequently. Sun eclipses (2 per year on the entire world), or Pentax advertising campaign?

[Class A]

Honestly, we can't compare Pentax to Mercedes.

We certainly cannot (I agree with everything else with what you said as well).

It has come to this: When I recently enquired about the Tamron 70-200/2.8 in a shop and responded with "Pentax" when I was asked about the mount I'd need it for, I was outright laughed at. Literally. The shop assistant said the lens would probably not exist for this mount. Admittedly he was an idiot and a rude one at that but even he would have given me a proper treatment if "Mercedes" had been the subject of our interchange.

[Nicolas06]

We certainly cannot (I agree with everything else with what you said as well).

It has come to this: When I recently enquired about the Tamron 70-200/2.8 in a shop and responded with "Pentax" when I was asked about the mount I'd need it for, I was outright laughed at. Literally. The shop assistant said the lens would probably not exist for this mount. Admittedly he was an idiot and a rude one at that but even he would have given me a proper treatment if "Mercedes" had been the subject of our interchange.

Don't want to say Pentax is mercedes... Just that thinking you need to have discount all the time to be successfull is a way of doing thing... not the only one.

I think pentax strategy is to give high margin to ressellers and to have margin for themselves too. If you sell less but have bigger margins, you may find yourself in a perfectly valid position. If Canikon get a good share of its marketshare from innexpensive products with low margins, they may not get that much cash in the end...

[timcatn]

but even he would have given me a proper treatment if "Mercedes" had been the subject of our interchange.

Are you sure about this? Where I live the Mercedes dealer is well known to be the most snobby condecending jerks of all the car dealers. If you don't wear a suit you can't afford to talk to us kind of.

[rawr]

Are you sure about this? Where I live the Mercedes dealer is well known to be the most snobby condecending jerks of all the car dealers. If you don't wear a suit you can't afford to talk to us kind of.

Same here. Unless you are buying one of their tractors, commercial vehicles or trucks. But they sell them in another area of the yard, far away from the prestige cars.

[thibs]

Same here. Unless you are buying one of their tractors, commercial vehicles or trucks. But they sell them in another area of the yard, far away from the prestige cars.

Yeah but if you came out of a Porsche, I bet he'd shut it and try to sell the car.

[Dan Rentea]

Perhaps, Pentax does not need to go on sale and is offering a good deal at its current price point?

Pentax may be making, or exceeding, their sales goals for the region while the others were attempting to screw their customers by being over priced and now they are struggling. Can you imagine all the unhappy purchasers of the 'other' brands who paid the going rate last week and find out they really overpaid? How often do East European retailers offer to refund the difference between original and 'sale price' items, or are the original price buyers just out of luck?

Personally, I have more confidence in a brand that's done its pricing homework over one that's bouncing its prices around as it fishes to find the market.

Just sayin'... M

Ok, let's forget about special offers when comes to Pentax cameras and/or lenses. But why can't I go into a photo store and ask for a Pentax camera to play with (or rent it for a few days)? It is that difficult for them to put at clients disposal a few camera and lenses for testing, or renting? How can I buy a camera, if I can not test the autofocus, the image quality, etc.? If I want to test a Fuji camera, or Olympus, or Sony, or Canon/Nikon...they are present in each and every store with a few cameras and lenses for me to test. But NO Pentax.

Just look on the internet, it's full of articles about the new Olympus compact camera (AIR A01), or about the new Sony A7RII, or Canon 5Ds...but nothing about Pentax.
If we think and say that it is ok to live in our little word, known by a few people...then I'm afraid that in a few years Sony, Olympus, Fuji, etc. will swallow Pentax.
Why? Because they are also innovative, they have an aggressive marketing, and the most important thing, they started to have support from third party manufacturers.

Like I said, I love my Pentax K-3 II, but I'm starting to miss a 24-70mm f2.8 lens, or a 70-200mm f2.8 lens from Tamron or Sigma (which are good alternatives if I don't have the money to buy a 70-200mm lens from Pentax). And I'm starting to miss a TTL trigger or a trigger with HSS (other then Cactus V6).

And in this regard, I think that Ricoh has a lot to lose because of their weird marketing strategy, if they have one (but I doubt it).

---

Last edited by Dan Rentea; 07-01-2015 at 12:50 AM.

[Nicolas06]

Ok, let's forget about special offers when comes to Pentax cameras and/or lenses. But why can't I go into a photo store and ask for a Pentax camera to play with (or rent it for a few days)? It is that difficult for them to put at clients disposal a few camera and lenses for testing, or renting? How can I buy a camera, if I can not test the autofocus, the image quality, etc.? If I want to test a Fuji camera, or Olympus, or Sony, or Canon/Nikon...they are present in each and every store with a few cameras and lenses for me to test. But NO Pentax.

Just look on the internet, it's full of articles about the new Olympus compact camera (AIR A01), or about the new Sony A7RII, or Canon 5Ds...but nothing about Pentax.
If we think and say that it is ok to live in our little word, known by a few people...then I'm afraid that in a few years Sony, Olympus, Fuji, etc. will swallow Pentax.
Why? Because they are also innovative, they have an aggressive marketing, and the most important thing, they started to have support from third party manufacturers.

Like I said, I love my Pentax K-3 II, but I'm starting to miss a 24-70mm f2.8 lens, or a 70-200mm f2.8 lens from Tamron or Sigma (which are good alternatives if I don't have the money to buy a 70-200mm lens from Pentax). And I'm starting to miss a TTL trigger or a trigger with HSS (other then Cactus V6).

And in this regard, I think that Ricoh has a lot to lose because of their weird marketing strategy, if they have one (but I doubt it).

In most place you can't play with all the gear, because they have only a few bodies/lenses for each brand. And to really play with them as there often no battery included you need to ask the vendor... Last time I did it, all their battery for the brand/model (Sony here) were depleted.

But it is quite common to go in some place and there no Fuji... Or no Leica... Or just one or 2 panasonic body and lenses.

On the opposite, more and more people buy through the Internet where the distribution cost are far lower... This can help increase the margin of Pentax and the reseller. Maybe if you want to have all the gear in many places and be able to try it, you should use Canon, not Pentax.

But I don't think that by random, that's Pentax strategy and help them decrease by several order of magnitude their spending on the distribution and stay profitable while some bigger players struggle. They may wish to change that, I don't know. But that's a valid strategy to me.

They could even go for the apple store concept if they wanted and get one in every metropol in the world (NY, London, Paris...) but this kind of things are not free.

[Rondec]

We certainly cannot (I agree with everything else with what you said as well).

It has come to this: When I recently enquired about the Tamron 70-200/2.8 in a shop and responded with "Pentax" when I was asked about the mount I'd need it for, I was outright laughed at. Literally. The shop assistant said the lens would probably not exist for this mount. Admittedly he was an idiot and a rude one at that but even he would have given me a proper treatment if "Mercedes" had been the subject of our interchange.

Photo stores are getting into trouble and going out of business because they don't offer anything extra that people can't get on line and usually their prices are worse -- at least in the US. That isn't to say that Ricoh couldn't do better at advertising and get cameras into stores, but sales people in the stores need to be more knowledgeable and treat the customers with respect.

[Na Horuk]

Photo stores are getting into trouble and going out of business because they don't offer anything extra that people can't get on line and usually their prices are worse

Recently I was at an electronics store and the salesperson literally told me "look, youll get much better prices online.."
And he was right. I was just so old-fashioned I wanted to actually see and touch the product before buying it

[Dan Rentea]

On the opposite, more and more people buy through the Internet where the distribution cost are far lower... This can help increase the margin of Pentax and the reseller. Maybe if you want to have all the gear in many places and be able to try it, you should use Canon, not Pentax.

But I don't think that by random, that's Pentax strategy and help them decrease by several order of magnitude their spending on the distribution and stay profitable while some bigger players struggle. They may wish to change that, I don't know. But that's a valid strategy to me.

How can be profitable for a company not to advertise their products? For every 300 Canon/Nikon or Sony cameras, Pentax is selling just 1-2 cameras.

I think their strategy is valid, not ours. Why? Because the ones who are buying Canon, or Nikon, or Sony, or Olympus are going to the store and test those cameras with different lenses (from Tamron or Sigma). There are a lots of free workshops in those stores, where you can learn how to use those cameras. Take a look at Canon and see how AF-C is explained for Canon 7D Mark II, and then look at Pentax and see if you find some good information about AF-C (focus tracking) for Pentax K-3 II.

Every single camera from Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji or Olympus is announced with a big event and people go into the photo stores to see those new cameras and a lot of them will also buy one.

Every day people see me with my Pentax K-3 II an ask me where can they go and test it. Well, they can not. You think it is ok to tell them to go buy one from an online store and see if it's good for them? Is this a valid Pentax strategy in your opinion??? I hope not...

For the next 3-4 years K-3 II is more than enough for me. I hope that everything will change when full frame will be released. And by that I mean better advertising, better flash system and support from third party manufacturers. If nothing is going to change in the next 3-4 years...then I think I will leave Pentax.

---------- Post added 07-01-15 at 11:11 AM ----------

Recently I was at an electronics store and the salesperson literally told me "look, youll get much better prices online.."
And he was right. I was just so old-fashioned I wanted to actually see and touch the product before buying it

Yes, for me is important to touch the camera in order to see if the grip is ok, if is to heavy, if I like how autofocus works...

You can buy from an online store if you know what are you buying, but if you never touch a Pentax camera you may end up paying for a camera that is not suits you.

[mecrox]

Photo stores are getting into trouble and going out of business because they don't offer anything extra that people can't get on line and usually their prices are worse -- at least in the US. That isn't to say that Ricoh couldn't do better at advertising and get cameras into stores, but sales people in the stores need to be more knowledgeable and treat the customers with respect.

Interesting how different things can be from one country to another. I have two or three good stores where I am, all within a couple of hours. The staff are helpful and knowledgeable (more than me and most of us), being photographers themselves, and one store is probably the biggest Pentax dealer in the UK. That ones operate a Pentax rental scheme and their prices are just as keen as anywhere online, at least here and only for Pentax gear (haven't checked other brands). But it's not all plain sailing. Another store store, which is probably the best of them, has a downer on Pentax at the mo. Something must have happened, but when I was in there a couple of weeks ago I was left in no doubt haha that if I moved to a Nikon or Sony full frame I wouldn't look back. The staff member said he'd done just this - from Pentax, having got fed up with their patchy support and cranky lenses. On the other hand, there are lots of stores here which happen to sell cameras among the kettles and washing machines. Prices are crap and there is no support. The shop assistants are kids doing Saturday jobs, but I guess this is where a lot of folks still shop. I think a very small number of specialist stores will survive, at least for a while, but only the very best of them and they will probably have to concentrate on brands which are in turn very good at supporting them. Still, I'm left with the impression that Pentax here need to get that FF into service and sort out the motors and Q&A on their lenses, although to be fair they do seem to be doing an awful lot more than during the dead days of Hoya when their UK website looked as if it has been run up by Rasputin and there was no marketing at all. Now, in the UK at least, Pentax have special offers and summer sale/discount programmes like everyone else. I'd be very surprised if they aren't doing a lot more business here now; it certainly looks like it.

[normhead]

The last time I went into a Henry's in St' Catherines, they didn't have any Pentax product in the store. I asked them why. "I don't know... head office just told us to return it all to the warehouse." It sounds to me like Pentax doesn't pay for it's shelf space by generating sales. That said, they only gave a very small space to Pentax anyway so it cost them practically nothing. And the shelf space being worth something depends on them being able to put something in that space that will sell more. What did I see in the Pentax space, duplicate copies of Canikon kit type, cheap zoom lenses. They could have had 5 copies of each instead of 15 and some Pentax gear as well, but I'm sure the bean counters at head office didn't see it that way. For the bean counters it'a all about them making dumb ass decisions that make it look like they are doing something useful, justifying their pay checks. So what you're seeing is a bias on the part of sales staff leading to lower sales, leading to cancellation of shelf space.

The stores imagine they are following a profitable business model. What they don't realize is, those of us who buy Pentax on-line, if I were to switch to Nikon on Canon I'd probably use one of the on-line sellers I get my Pentax gear from. They've essentially lost my business. The advantage a store has is you can hold, compare and tryout different brands, beside each other. That is their only advantage. If they don't have Pentax in the store, they've lost my business, not only for Pentax but for every brand of camera I may buy. And from my perspective, that's why brick and mortar stores are going down the tube. They want to be the Canon/Nikon,( then add the owners favourite brand) store. Well, in this day and age, we can all do better on line. I would happily pay and extra 50-100 bucks per item to be able to walk out of a store with what I want. That doesn't happen anymore. Henry's asked me to pay for my DA*60-250 and then I could pick it up from the store if I wanted. Honestly, any on-line company,, including Henry's would deliver to my house, so why would I go for that?

When I was trying to decide between the DA*60-250, Sigma 50-500, Sigma 120-400 their solution was, "put all three on your credit card, send the two you don't want back." Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not taking time out of my day to drive to a store, that doesn't do anything I can't do from home, but show me brands of cameras I'm not interested in.

Stores are dead, not because of on-line competition, but because so often I walk in with money to spend, walk out with nothing, then go home and find what I want on line. Many of us have realized it doesn't make any sense to keep going to the store first. There has to be a payoff for the customer. Stores are asking the wrong question. The right question is not how can we compete with the on-line stores, it should be what can we offer that they can't?

How many times have I gone to Henry's, played with a little Pentax stuff for a bit, then noticed a tripod or photo paper or something else on sale and bought it. That's the part of reality that make the bean counters worthless. All they know is they didn't sell any Pentax gear. But they have no idea how much stuff I bought after i came to the store to see the Pentax gear I didn't buy, which used to be as much as 300-400 dollars a trip. Now they don't get that money, but the bean counters are up there wondering why their profits are going down, and removing more and more stuff that isn't selling from the shelves. And this is why as soon as the bean counters take over, the store loses it's soul. Store owners pay attention to what gets people in the stores. Bean counters only know what sells.

Store owners know, if you can get them in the store and you have a well thought out inventory, they'll buy stuff. Otherwise, you're just competing on price, and there's no way a brick and mortar store could ever compete on price, with a company that's essentially a warehouse and a shipping department.

[RonHendriks1966]

How can be profitable for a company not to advertise their products? For every 300 Canon/Nikon or Sony cameras, Pentax is selling just 1-2 cameras.

I think their strategy is valid, not ours. Why? Because the ones who are buying Canon, or Nikon, or Sony, or Olympus are going to the store and test those cameras with different lenses (from Tamron or Sigma). There are a lots of free workshops in those stores, where you can learn how to use those cameras. Take a look at Canon and see how AF-C is explained for Canon 7D Mark II, and then look at Pentax and see if you find some good information about AF-C (focus tracking) for Pentax K-3 II.

Every single camera from Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji or Olympus is announced with a big event and people go into the photo stores to see those new cameras and a lot of them will also buy one.

Every day people see me with my Pentax K-3 II an ask me where can they go and test it. Well, they can not. You think it is ok to tell them to go buy one from an online store and see if it's good for them? Is this a valid Pentax strategy in your opinion??? I hope not...

For the next 3-4 years K-3 II is more than enough for me. I hope that everything will change when full frame will be released. And by that I mean better advertising, better flash system and support from third party manufacturers. If nothing is going to change in the next 3-4 years...then I think I will leave Pentax.

---------- Post added 07-01-15 at 11:11 AM ----------



Yes, for me is important to touch the camera in order to see if the grip is ok, if is to heavy, if I like how autofocus works...

You can buy from an online store if you know what are you buying, but if you never touch a Pentax camera you may end up paying for a camera that is not suits you.

I was asked recently to do a one hour (up to 90 minutes) talk about photography, Pentax sportsimages and portraits in a store that was newly Pentax Premium dealer. This question came from Ricoh Imaging. In the end this didn't took place since I have no intention to do this on my own expenses. There was no budget for compensation, not even the one hour drive in my car.

[DDoram]

I feel fortunate that in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada I can go to a local camera store (McBains) and handle any Pentax product available. If I find a cheaper online price, I take it to them for a price match, which they will do >90% of the time. I would rather support my local dealer than some on-line company from wherever.