Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/12/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]That's par for the course, pretty much. I know a few camera dealers that once had big stores but now strictly do everything online. Maintaining a retail store is just too expensive these days when the bottom line you're competing against is a giant like Amazon.com. Here in Philly, the closest photo store with a decent selection of anything is in Bryn Mawr. All of the big camera shops closed down or were bought out by Ritz and now are just purveyors of point & shoot cameras. We do have a Calumet, but again, it's a big chain store, it's expensive and they have a used gear selection that is more like a museum than a showcase. -----Original Message----- From: lug-bounces+photo.forrest=earthlink.net@leica-users.org [mailto:lug-bounces+photo.forrest=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Rob McClure Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 9:42 PM To: Leica Users Group Subject: Re: [Leica] In Shock For the first time in morte than a year I went to the two primary professional camera shops in Columbus, Ohio -- Midwest Photo Exchange and Cord Camera (main store). I realize that digital has overtaken film, but was shocked to find virtually no used equipment, digital or film. Both stores previously had massive inventories of this stuff. Also, the new digital equipment in stock was pretty pedestrian -- the usual Canon and Nikon. Very little Pentax, Olympus or Panasonic. Both are Leica dealers, but no digital or film Leicas were in stock. The large MF and LF departments at MPEX are shells of its former selves. I guess I am partly to blame as I now buy most of my used and new equipment mailorder. Is this typical of what is happening to camera stores in other markets? I suspect it is and it is disturbing. I'll think twice before buying mailorder in the future (in the unlikely event I can find those items locally). Rob McClure _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information