> Olympus America is solely responsible for whatever happens in
> their market. If they make the wrong tactical decision, they
> wear the costs. But of course if things get too "hot under
> the collar," Japan may ask why. This has happened before but
> not commonly so.
Obviously not enough. Olympus America is a prime example of a
business unit that is severely clue-impaired. How they continue
to fail at keeping major retailers pushing the products is
beyond me. When the biggest chains that sell camera gear won't
touch Olympus you've got a problem.
Maybe they do OK in the medical fields with the high-dollar
items, but when it comes to consumer electronics, Olympus
America is totally incompetent. The occasional nut which a
blind squirrel finds doesn't make it sighted.
I've railed against OA for years now. The same idiots keep
doing the same thing over and over again. It must be a
corporate culture thing. If Olympus Headquarters truely
understood the mess that OA has made of the USA market, they
would have shut that operation down years ago.
Khem, I don't think you have a clue just how messed up OA has
made things over here. This latest jesture of not selling the
E-400 isn't even on the fringe of idiotic things this company
has done. For example: Charging the store more for a
low-margin item than what the big-box stores are selling the
same item for. Then whacking the same store with a promotional
fee so that the big-box store can sell in the same market. The
big-box stores not only do not get charged the promotional fee,
but they charge the companies for advertising space in the
flyers as well as shelf-space!
Another thing is the "minimum order". Many stores would have
carried the E-system if OA didn't mandate a minimum first order
that was downright obscene. The other brands either have no
minimum order or a much smaller amount. No retailer is going to
buy into the E-system with its high-risk sales probabilities
when they can buy and sell Canon and Nikons with little risk and
with no minimum order amounts. Forcing a camera store to pony
up $6000+ on an initial order for a system which they will have
to sell below cost is unreal. To make matters even worse, the
retailer already is selling tons of Olympus P&S cameras, but the
E-system is considered an entirely different product line
requiring an entirely different sales/purchase agreement. The
$6000+ had to be exclusively on the E-system and not combined
with any amount of P&S cameras.
This is why every person I know in my state with an E-1 had to
buy it from some major photography store in New York City.
Welcome to our world here on this side of the pond.
AG
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