Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/03/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]To Don's excellent analysis I would only add that while Jessop's is quite a large chain, perhaps UK customers have finally woken up to the fact that they are being ripped off big time at home and have started shopping abroad more for photo gear, just as they already do for booze and cigarettes. Nathan Don Dory wrote: > Reality time folks. Most camera stores make their real money on > photofinishing. With digital capture roll counts are down, in some > places more than 50% down. You can make money selling cameras if you > are big enough to get proper return privileges, arrange for delayed > billing, order in small quantities so you don't get stuck while having > enough clout that when you do reorder you go to the front of the line, > take full advantage of the freebies that come with 10,000 unit orders, > and have an inventory system that lets you know exactly what is selling, > where, at what velocity over time, and with what regionalism. > > In times past, you made money by ordering in large quantities, waited > out the manufacturer's price increases, and kept raising your prices. > Today that would be a prescription for bankruptcy. Even memory cards > can not be allowed to collect dust as the prices drop like a hawk on a > rabbit. > > With profits from photofinishing maintaining a retail camera shop you > could get a nice friendly sales associate who knew the stock and the how > to. To stay competitive in photofinishing you need to spend large sums > of money on a fairly regular basis just to hold a shrinking dollar > business. Three years ago, spending 100K would get you a nice enough > digital lab, now you need to add another 50 to 100K on a kiosk > arrangement to lure digital card toting customers all at a shrinking per > print price. Also, you will need to set up some kind on internet based > image capture system to keep your busy customer from going elsewhere. > For perspective, Fuji was showing their latest Frontier at 250K and you > would need to spend another 100K on the front end unit to scan and/or > distribute the files to the appropriate place. > > At the end of the day, your local camera store will either cease to > exist, be swallowed up by someone much larger, or be supported by some > other activity that brings in profits such as a studio, wedding > business, custom printing, or outside imaging business. > > My suspicion is that Jessops is getting whipped by Kodak on one end, > caught by frequent product cycles on another, nailed by Eb** on the used > end, and losing out to internet savvy consumers who are avoiding the > VAT. > > 0.02 > > Don > dorysrus@mindspring.com > -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507 Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com