[Leica] What's this all about??

[vick.ko at sympatico.ca (Vick Ko)]

Guessing, but:

1)  digital photo items have sales margins similar to computing items,
ie. slim to none, such that retailers have an extremely difficult time
making profits.  

        This drives trends where "big box discount" retailers are the
only ones that survive, e.g. in Canada, Future Shop, Best Buy, Walmarts,
The Brick.  

        The result is no specialization in single products, with staff
that are largely not knowledgeable about the products they sell (sorry,
can't tell you how it works, but we do have plenty of stock...).

        Then going to the "camera store", if they even continue to
exist, will be identical to going to the discount electronics store.
Or even more perverse, the camera store also has to become experts in
computing and image processing, and endure a similar transition where
the photographic-expert staff have no idea about discussing the computer
gear.

2)  sale cycle of digital gear so short that the store is stuck with
"stale" stock.  e.g. there might only be new models of cameras
introduced every two years, but with digital cameras, new models
introduced every 4 months, with multiple models.  If it doesn't sell,
the store is stuck with the stock, and either has to eat the cost or
discount it to "close to loss" to clear it out.

Times are changing, and so are business models.  I have no desire of
walking into a camera shop and feeling like I've walked into an
electronics store.  Nor do I want to discuss operating systems, print
drivers and ink, when I want to be fondling the latest Leica toy, which
in Ottawa, isn't possible any more.   There are no more dealers in
Ottawa that stock Leica, Rollei, or Hasselblad.  



Regards,

Vick Ko




-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+vick.ko=sympatico.ca@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+vick.ko=sympatico.ca@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
V.Roger
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2005 6:43 AM
To: lug lug
Subject: [Leica] What's this all about??


This morning's London Times- Jessops for those who
don't know is one of England's larges camera
retailers- vroger

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9074-1535271,00.html
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