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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
05-04-2012, 11:59 AM
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Found this roll of film in the fridge and had it developed while stopping by the local box drugstore. Jeez, their scan and develop rates went up from what I remember... Kodak c-41 B&W from inside the family farm's barn (which has since come down) and a random landscape from Colorado last year. I think it was from a scenic overview spot south of Ouray... This would have come out of my Spotmatic F with an SMC 55/1.8
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Forum: Sold Items
06-19-2013, 03:04 PM
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While I thoroughly enjoy my DA* 300mm, I would have jumped on this had I not just spent as much as I did on that DA.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-03-2012, 07:28 PM
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agreed.
When I decided that my DA12-24 was cumbersome enough I was about to quit bringing it along unless I had a specific known need for it, I looked at my prior usage and decided that a DA 21mm would fit 90% of my need in that focal range. Based on my happiness with my first limited lens from my purchase of a used DA 40mm (due to pricing of new), I figured I'd be happy with the output of a DA 21 and started looking for a good used copy last week. I decided to price compare used to B&H on Monday- noticed the drop in price to what I felt was reasonable for a new lens with full warranty and bought one on the spot. The UPP pricing was too high for justification of new.
I also purchased a new DFA 100mm WR macro just before UPP took effect but would not have purchased it new at $850 given the pricing of used or 3rd party at the time.
I deal with sales and structures of programming and from the moment I saw the UPP, I knew that it was going to halt the sales. Volume makes money and penetrates percent of industry. For a brand in the position of being a small player in the industry, the model should be to push volume of a competitive quality alternative to the household names to get known. Cut profit margin by a small amount to buy yourself in. Once you have market share, then you can make SMALL manageable margin increases on an as needed basis to appease the uppers/shareholders. An underdog jacking up pricing says one of three things: trying to slow down sales volumes, milking the business dry attempting to pull a few more $ out of a brand on its death bed or incompetency. If your minority of dealers are crippled by the online sellers pricing, it isn't the fault of the pricing structure that the customer sees, it is a failure in management at a higher level to support their dealers with proper market awareness and fitting volume discount programming. Holding back you top performers that were getting you broad market penetration in in a wide geography so your weak local performers can compete is dumb. Empower your volume dealers to keep penetrating market while tooling up your local dealers to sell the value of their local store and the value of the brand.
- What you want is a customer that walks in the local store and asks to see a Pentax because their friend/family member was raving about it, reviews were good and online pricing was competitive and sees that store offering a competitive product (goods + service = price SLIGHTLY higher than online) and makes the purchase on the spot because the product lived up to the hype once they laid their hands on it.
- What you don't want is them to hear someone raving about it, walk into a store to find over inflated prices on past generation product that goes back home to order the newer stuff cheaper online.
- What you REALLY don't want is for someone to see outrageous online prices compared to the better known competition when initially researching and have a lost sale to competition.
The switch from bad to worse sales structure worried me. Hopefully the drop in price lasted long enough for the market to become aware of the drop and act on it to drive total income up. Dropping prices and raising them back up before the market has a chance to respond with some sales volume would mask common sense. When you're in manufacturing of a consumer product, you make money on volume, when you're in the business of specialized production with limited competition and industry potential, you make money on margin. Trying to make money off margin when you have no market penetration and a huge industry is stupid. Fix the root cause, not the symptom!
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