Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/02/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Ritz Camera, a chain of photo stores prominent in the middle Atlantic states, filed for Chapter 11 protection today. They cited as the primary reason the failure of their film-processing business. Oddly, the Ewald-Clark chain in Roanoke sold out to Ritz in 1999 after realizing that its own film-processing business was in the tank. Ritz, though, seems to have come up against the non-photo store threat: most folks having film processed today do so at Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, Rite-Aid, and the like. I can get a roll of miniature-format film run by Walgreens for $5 including 4" by 6" prints (17, 547, 212 KiloKelvins, for the metric guys in our midst and, yes, I grin!) Hell, it is hardly worth my while to resurrect the chemical darkroom save for the control it allows me. I hope Ritz gets out of its doldrums they were a fair player in a lot of ways, though, again, they screwed up when it came to selling gear, always starting low and working up, where they should have started at the high end and worked down. So be it. Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!