Never thought you'd be this slow.

Hmmm, personal attacks, insuslts, what should I do, what should I do?

BTW, there is nothing wrong in owning other cameras/brands ... too bad that you don't own some Pentax stuff ...

Radu

[alunfoto]

Well, as I see it the problem is that the new Pentax distributor is in Sweden. I'm in Norway. The distance to me is almost the same as from me to New York. I'll buy my Pentax gear from B+H hereafter! Its much cheaper anyway.

I hope I will be able to continue buying from Fovi A/S.
But our situations are quite different, geographically speaking...

Executive distributor in Norway will be Aronsen, btw. Interestingly, they are also distributing Samsung in the Norwegian market. At the moment, Samsung's presence in the electronics shops is just a whisper. :-(

Jostein

[Kunzite]

ftpaddict, in fact I'm seriously thinking to buy another Canon - as Pentax won't offer what I need. Yeap, really. No point in sticking with Pentax if they don't deliver.
Or, maybe I'll buy an Epson? They make great printers, too

Yes, I've heard the K200D sold quite well around here. And the lenses aren't that overpriced - if compared to prices in U.E. and not U.S. - in fact, I was able to get better prices than in Germany, for example - for my 70mm Limited. For some items, I can get better prices than in U.S. - the M42 adapter is such an item.
A good distributor can make the difference. As I've said, let's hope the things will improve also in northern Europe.

[PePe]

Well, perhaps it will turn out for the best?

In the Benelux we had a similar change with Pentax Breda being closed down a few years ago to be replaced by De Beukelaer as a distributor and service centre. Though the first months of the transition weren't easy De Beukelaer pulled through nicely and service in the region has been very good recently. Or at least that is my impression of it...

Wim

This type of consolidation excercises tend to be geared for the densely populated markets, where there will always be a distributor within a somehow reasonable distance (say a few hundred kilometers...). Up here we easily end up with having a centralised distribution/service centre literally thousands of kilometers away, in a different country speaking a different language, and not really knowing anything at all about the local market. Under such conditions, local presence can make all the difference.

Well, time will tell how this works out. I will be very,very curious to see how they cope with the launch of their next generation of DSLR´s.
Another interesting feature about this arrangement is that the distributor for the Nordic area is now the same company Tamron is using. In terms of past performance this is not necessarily encouraging. Interesting enough, there does not appear to be any consistency between the distribution systems of Pentax, Samsung and Hoya. Whatewer this may indicate, if anything.

[Cambo]

As I mentioned a while back, official camera of Costco...or maybe Ikea.

Happy New Year, Pål.

Cameron

Dear all,

The turn of the year has brought dramatic change to Pentax' representation in the Scandinavian market. Needless to say I am P**sed by this business decision at Pentax centrally. I do not know if this is Pentax Europe's doing or Pentax Japan. In my opinion they are most likely cutting off the branch they sit on.

Alunfoto: A dramatic change for Pentax in Scandinavia

Short resymé:
Pentax branch office in Sweden closed down.
Distributor rights for all scandinavian countries withdrawn from existing companies and handed to a company more directed towards large-chain electronic stores.
Pentax Norway has retained the service department for the Norwegian market.

Jostein

This is not looking good ...

This is truluy bad news. Fovi had excellent and personal service. Good to know that Pål is still servicing Pentax though.

Is this an indication that Pentax will only make low end cameras for the masses sold through electronic chain stores?

[NorthPentax]

Why is this a problem?
If they get Pentax out there, in giant consumer stores like Elkjøp and Lefdal... GOOD!
Japanphoto in Norway will probably always have Pentax. I buy my camera's there and my lenses/flashes at prodigital2000.

If you want to buy from Fovi, go ahead. Have you seen their prices?

I'm glad Pål V. is keeping the service part of Fovi. I got my spare parts for my DA40mm today and it's no longer broken

[melander]

I for one would welcome if they could get some cameras out there, there is one place that has pentax somewhere close, and its an internet store, cant feel/try the lenses.
Everywhere you go its canikon here and canikon there.

and by close by. I have been in a 400km radius of my hometown and have still to find a store where you can try/feel/see lenses.

[Jonson PL]

This is very old news, there was a thread discussing it; close to half a year ago.

Edit :
I found one of the older threads. There were several :
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-news-rumors/35782-pentax-scandinav...tml#post329175

[Brice]

I think Pentax it's 4500-5000 workers
It's normal for a company (in the economic logical ) ) to be present with employee when the market is important enough.
Scandinavian market (finland, sweden, and Danemark represant less than 30 millions of people) and the economics cost social charges and level of life are high.
They can save money by closing this area, and to be concentrate on bigger market and central europe (bigger market, cheaper cost)

[Bophoto]

This is very old news, there was a thread discussing it; close to half a year ago.

Edit :
I found one of the older threads. There were several :
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-news-rumors/35782-pentax-scandinav...tml#post329175

Yea, it was me that started that threads, Hoya was cutting down in Scandinavia and other places to reduce costs. Fokus trading was taking over distribution(they have also Tamron, Velbon, Lowepro, Metz, Lumix and....), and now the homepage is running from Hamburg, some German words instead of Swedish but . For me it was bad because i had only 50 minutes to Pentax Scandinavia ...

But what i am concerned of is how Pentax was at Photokina and a smal photo exhibition in Stockholm, At Photokina Pentax had perhaps 10 times smaller showcase than Olympus. Even Samsung had bigger area/show for GX20 and lenses than Pentax had for K200D, K20D, K-m, all lenses and Optio cameras.

Are they ashamed of the products?

[Pål Jensen]

I think Pentax it's 4500-5000 workers
It's normal for a company (in the economic logical ) ) to be present with employee when the market is important enough.
Scandinavian market (finland, sweden, and Danemark represant less than 30 millions of people) and the economics cost social charges and level of life are high.
They can save money by closing this area, and to be concentrate on bigger market and central europe (bigger market, cheaper cost)

Pentax doesn't have any cost with this as the distributors are separate companies that have nothing to do with Pentax except representing them. Pentax Norway was closed down at least 15 years ago (I think).
By now having a distributor in Sweden and a subdistributor in Norway is going to make Pentax more expensive as all links in the chain would want to make money.

[Harald]

For Finland this is not an big deal, I think. Local distributor has been quite inactive several years and have not done its work very properly anyway.

Having local distributor in Sweden cannot be considered an good move either. Perhaps it is, if they really get Pentax products to local big chains, but we will see. Anyway they cannot do it worse than the previous one did.

But... Every time any service has moved/centralised to the Sweden it has been bad move from our point of view. We have lot of experience about this with our cellular service providers and central logistic chain warehouses. Those people in our western neighbour have not been particularly keen of servicing us too. Some kind of attitude problem... I think.

[Kunzite]

But what i am concerned of is how Pentax was at Photokina and a smal photo exhibition in Stockholm, At Photokina Pentax had perhaps 10 times smaller showcase than Olympus. Even Samsung had bigger area/show for GX20 and lenses than Pentax had for K200D, K20D, K-m, all lenses and Optio cameras.

Are they ashamed of the products?

Well, they didn't put up a show (like the Samsung girl, some artificial scenery for testing cameras, workshop with pro photographers and so on). But they had most of the products on display.
Most of the space, however, was for business - closed to the public. And btw, they had an excellent strawberry cocktail!

What I would like to see at the next Photokina is not shows, not beautiful girls (wait, skip that, I'd like to see beautiful girls! ) - but prints. Big prints that will show to everyone what one can do with Pentax equipment.
Didn't Olympus had something like that?

[Pål Jensen]

Ok. So now Pentax have central Scandinavian distributor. In Norway they have a sub distributor who again sell to another distributor (Fotosentralen): very effective!. The effect is that Pentax is now out of all the major electronic chain stores (like Elkjøp and Expert), and probably out of most camera stores as well for all I know.
The idea of treating the Scandinavian countries as one market show a complete lack of knowledge; the markets are completely different; some are members of EU and some not. Just as well have the distribution centre in the US for us Norwegians!
The Pentax.no web site is a joke; no mention of the K-7 or lenses. Fovi, the old Pentax distributors have a complete Pentax web site and now function as web store with reasonable prices. Lets hope they hold out...

Talk about Hoya shooting themselves in the foot....

[Pål Jensen]

Pentax doesn't have any cost with this as the distributors are separate companies that have nothing to do with Pentax except representing them. Pentax Norway was closed down at least 15 years ago (I think).
By now having a distributor in Sweden and a subdistributor in Norway is going to make Pentax more expensive as all links in the chain would want to make money.

Actually Pentax Scandinavia in Sweden was a branch under Pentax Japan. It functioned as a Swedish distributor only; at least Norway had their own distributor dealing with Pentax Europe. Hoya have decided of closing down Pentax Scanidinavia in Sweden; probably a good idea. The bad idea is to treat Scandinavia as one market.