Originally posted by jshurak you can usually haggle a little bit with prices. I've brought in print outs of online deals for some musical instruments and told the people that I would love to buy from my local shop but couldn't pass up a deal like that.....they usually give in.
If you try to push the camera shops here on price you quickly find out what the distributor is selling the goods for.
I feel genuinely sorry for my local camera store - they're great guys, give great advice and I would love to support them - I buy all my filters, bags, and other gear from them, but they just cannot sell me Pentax gear for less than somewhere between 150% and 200% of overseas prices - and often that's on order which will take weeks to arrive anyway.
It is rather sad actually - I've had some very informative chats with the staff there (who are all professional / semi professional photographers), and I'd really like to be able to repay them for that by buying higher value items from them, but they just don't have the goods to sell me. Basically, in NZ, Pentax is a brand without support from anyone. I suspect it's similar in Australia.