Last week we were over in Michigan visiting family and picking up my
4x5 color enlarger which has been in storage at my Dad's place. While
going up through Muskegon, what do we see?
A billboard for a local camera shop--advertising OLYMPUS!
The next day, we pay a visit. There was a decent sized spread of
Olympus m43 gear including the latest/greatest stuff. They even had a
small handful of legacy 43 gear there too. All said and done, I'm
going to say that they had close to a linear meter of display cabinet
in use for Olympus. I haven't seen that much cabinet space devoted to
Olympus since probably 1985.
Granted, Nikon and Canon each had 3 meters or more of display area,
but I was shocked and pleased.
I talked to the owner and he said that Olympus has been selling very
well this holiday season--a great success. However, he said (and the
other camera store in town also confirmed with their own numbers) that
the Digital Rebel accounted for over half of all cameras sold this
season. It outsold all other brands combined!
That puts an interesting perspective on success and relative success.
I'm very happy for Olympus, but at the same time we need to
acknowledge that somebody else is still winning. I asked about Nikon
sales and an interesting comment was made about that. Turns out that
the big box stores and general purpose retailers are where Nikon (and
Sony) has made the most sales this holiday season. The dedicated
camera stores' bread and butter remains Canon.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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