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Re: [OM] re: TAMPA FL/camera store winge

Subject: Re: [OM] re: TAMPA FL/camera store winge
From: Jay Maynard <jmaynard@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 17:49:21 -0600
On Mon, Mar 15, 1999 at 10:17:52AM -0500, Charles Loeven wrote:
> I truly wish that I could walk into a camera shop and trust the sales
> person, get good service (with a smile) and pay a competitive price. I
> would pay _a little more_ to be able to handle the equipment in the shop
> and have my vendor only a few miles away.  I miss the personal touch but
> unless things improve, B&H here I come.

This one's near to my heart...

Once upon a time (more than 20 years ago, now), my parents owned a camera
store. It did reasonably well for a startup, and had a core of dedicated
customers that spent the majority of their money there. What did it in was
the mail-order businesses selling camera equipment, often for less than we
were paying for it from the distributor. People would come in, spend a bunch
of time looking at cameras and so on, then walk out without buying anything
- only to return with their new camera they'd mailordered and wanting more
help and such. The margins and volume of the other stuff we sold just wasn't
enough to pay the bills.

The problem with paying _a little more_ is that it's still often not enough
to keep the lights on. You're not going to make inroads on volume until you
get very close to the mailorder price, and that doesn't leave you with
enough gross profit to pay the bills.

I'm not at all surprised to see the local camera store as a dying breed. I
wish it were otherwise, but I don't see how.


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