Originally posted by falconeye Eventually, I do now understand ...
Pentax must be planning
Pentax flagship stores
in major cities worldwide. This all of a sudden explains two things:
- The withdrawal from "el cheapo" photo shops
- The selection of 100 colors for K-x
Fig.1 "Leica Ginza" – Leica Camera’s first flagship store in Tokyo
Imagine the showcase of all 100 color combinations in these flagship stores. Will attract the masses to have a look
Seriously - Pentax arn't the only company cutting down on distributors/dealers, I deal with several in my day job that are doing the same thing. And funnily enough those have just upped prices too, quite significantly. Given the current financial climate, maybe they're doing it to limit exposure to distributors holding large stock amounts... those distis could go bust leaving Pentax seriously out of pocket. They don't want that. And the price rise, whilst uncomfortable for consumers, is a fairly sensible tactic to maintain those revenue projections (and thus to be able to stay in business!).
Looks like a cracking little camera I think, and perfectly timed for the Xmas sales boom. From a marketing perspective you really could absolutely *massacre* the opposition with it... with 'green shoots' approaching in the economy, a colourful little camera that contrasts with everyone else's black number injecting some colour back into people's life, heck I could build a whole camera campaign on the back of this. Also all these colours, if I were them I'd make plastic dummies that look very much like the real thing and send pack of 25 of these in cool colour combinations to the dealers as hugely eye-catching point of sale displays. But also 1 real one so they could try the real thing. The possibilities with this are REALLY endless, I'd love to be doing the marketing for it
And the fact is, for those who poo-poo this as gimmicky and low end, well you do need the profits brought in by volume sales in lowend stuff to support high end R&D!