At what price to you give up loyalty to your local dealer?

[Manfred M]

Congrats

Why are you feeling guilty though? I'm of a mindset that it's simply Darwin evolution in progress (survival of the fittest); if the "corner camera shop" eventually disappears then it's because people didn't perceive sufficient value in what they offered. End of.

We could probably have had the same conversation about supporting the salt sellers right after the refrigerator was invented.

I have noticed that blocks of ice are no longer delivered to homes, and the coal truck no longer runs down the street. Not only does the milkman no longer use a cart pulled by a horse, he no longer comes to the house at all. Record stores haven't sold vinyl disks in decadesl but the few remaining ones are still called record stores and CDs are becoming obsolete. Video rental stores are becoming few and far between.

I guess it's called progress,

[KCBrecks]

Funny you should mention the milkman and his horse Manfred. My daugther is daily plagued by the horses from the nearby riding school leaving piles of steaming rose fertiliser right outside her house. I understand there are more of these animals about in the UK than there are in their reputed heyday. They just do a different job now.

Keith

[Markvetnz]

Buy it online. Simple. As Dylan said ---- the times they are a changin'.

[enaiman]

Easy choice for me because any local store would charge at least 20% more.
I would like to support the local stores but not at this price. I'm fine with up to 10% but more than that is outrageous. Plus, many times they don't have everything I need in stock and I'll have to wait at least two weeks for them to bring it here.

[sqjaw]

Remember one thing It's nice to talk to some one about your purchase and if it is the right
choice and when problems arise you can go to them and get help where as the internet you can not most of the time, Of course depended s on who you by from:

[Colin Southern]

Remember one thing It's nice to talk to some one about your purchase and if it is the right
choice and when problems arise you can go to them and get help where as the internet you can not most of the time, Of course depended s on who you by from:

I'm not so sure about that to be honest. I'm increasingly finding that the folks in the shops are SALESMEN first and foremost, and often not particularly experienced or knowledgeable about the products they're selling - especially camera equipment. Many couldn't care less if a xxD or xxxD is best suited to the customers needs -- so long as they get a sale.

When things "go wrong" they often first try to infer it's the users fault and then suggest the user gets in touch with the manufacturer (often retail outlets don't get involved in the support process) (or at best will only return an item on the customers behalf). As a "case in point", a friend of mine bought a 450D, but couldn't get liveview to work - they took it back to the shop they got it from where the staff concluded that it didn't have it and they'd need to upgrade to a 500D (despite liveview being printed on the box!). It took me about 5 minutes to download the manuail online - find the right page - and then turn the feature on. Local store 0, Internet 1.

On the net I don't think sites like this that give quality advice are particularly hard to find at all. Quite typically I'll hear about something somewhere on the net - research it - then go into the appropriate place to buy it locally only to find they want 1/3 more and that I know a lot more about it than they do.

[Soozie B]

Hi Mark,

As a person who gets paid to shop and to teach others how to purchase for the best total cost of ownership, I would have to say that there is no reason for feeling guilty.

You have taken the time to research the product, engaged others in a decision making process, attempted to negotiate with your local supplier, and conducted a perfectly sound SWOT(strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats) analysis.

All of these steps are what constitutes good purchasing principles and I cannot fault your methodology.

Let your decision rest comfortably on your shoulders. You have done well, and at the end of the day, your local supplier made your choice easier for his owns reasons, not because you didn't give him an opportunity to do business with you.

[Webbo51]

I worked in retail for a while and struggled with competition from overseas on-line suppliers. We eventually decided we'd concentrate on our service and often built up bikes or fitted parts which customers had bought overseas. On one occasion, I purchased an Italian part from a UK supplier cheaper than I could purchase wholesale from the Australian distributor AND had it delivered to my door in 4 working days!
If it we're only talking about 10% difference, I stick with the local though.

[Colin Southern]

If it we're only talking about 10% difference, I stick with the local though.

Just playing "devil's advocate" here for a sec ...

"If I pay 10% more to buy local, what's the benefit to me"? ie "what more value do I get for paying the price premium"?

[Andrew76]

Just playing "devil's advocate" here for a sec ...

"If I pay 10% more to buy local, what's the benefit to me"? ie "what more value do I get for paying the price premium"?

I don't want to argue, as I agree with everything you are saying, but I believe David Suzuki made a pretty good argument with his 'Think global, buy local', teachings. Not to come off sounding like a tree hugging environmentalist, but there are some pretty good reasons to keep cash in a local economy, even if it means a small sacrifice.

[Black Pearl]

I think from reading through all this that you've bought it online as a grey import - a good way to save money - buT you are not going to be able to register it with Nikon UK so you won't get their Nikon UK backed 2 year warranty and you won't be able to register as a pro user (assuming you have the right lenses - you do have the right lenses to go with the D800 don't you?) so the saving may not be as good value as you first thought.

[thequacksoflife]

Certainly on Camera bodies I think it is important to try the thing, hold it, see if it feels right.

I decided to ditch my dSLR and a few weeks ago I had decided on an Olympus E-M5, I have some m4/3 lenses. After trying the camera in the shop i decided that no way was this a camera I wanted. I DID love the Fuji XE-1 and it is sitting here waiting for the battery to charge! Look two systems? Don't ask! They will compliment each other

The thing is I might have saved some money on line but without a dealer I would have wasted time trying and where will the dealer be next time I need to try something?.... my view anyway. I'll also get some after sales service if I need it. I ought to add that the dealer, Park Cameras, are very good and are never pushy. I can think of one dealer whose manner convinced a friend that hell would freeze over before he sold her anything.

[Colin Southern]

I don't want to argue, as I agree with everything you are saying, but I believe David Suzuki made a pretty good argument with his 'Think global, buy local', teachings. Not to come off sounding like a tree hugging environmentalist, but there are some pretty good reasons to keep cash in a local economy, even if it means a small sacrifice.

I know what you're saying, but I'm starting to think that the traditional argument of "if you don't support local businesses then we're going to disappear (and thus not be here when you need us)" is perhaps just a self-preserving "resistance to change". And perhaps it's a dynamic that NEEDS to change. Just as refrigerators replaced blocks of ice and bottled milk was replaced by cartoned milk and drivers on floppy disks (taking weeks to arrive if you had a problem) were replaced by internet download, we live in a changing world - and who's to say that OVERALL a change towards internet purchasing for the types of product that suit this "new" form of shopping is "wrong"?

I guess that one could also argue that if businessmen want $$$ to remain in the "local" economy then they need to be starting up internet businesses ... it's certainly working for some.

For the most part though, what I'm seeing (here in NZ anyway) is businesses dominated by franchises ... I can pop along to another city for a holiday only to feel like "I hardly left home" because when I go for a walk all I see are the same shops. The other interesting dynamic with them is there's very much a trend of selling mediocre quality goods at high prices; something that I suspect makes them very vulnerable to internet shoppers, but luckily for them at this stage, enough people still like to browse local stores ... and take advantage of "buy now, pay later" payment arrangements (which generally internet suppliers don't offer to anywhere near the same degree).

[Colin Southern]

Certainly on Camera bodies I think it is important to try the thing, hold it, see if it feels right.

I decided to ditch my dSLR and a few weeks ago I had decided on an Olympus E-M5, I have some m4/3 lenses. After trying the camera in the shop i decided that no way was this a camera I wanted. I DID love the Fuji XE-1 and it is sitting here waiting for the battery to charge! Look two systems? Don't ask! They will compliment each other

The thing is I might have saved some money on line but without a dealer I would have wasted time trying and where will the dealer be next time I need to try something?.... my view anyway. I'll also get some after sales service if I need it. I ought to add that the dealer, Park Cameras, are very good and are never pushy. I can think of one dealer whose manner convinced a friend that hell would freeze over before he sold her anything.

It's an interesting perspective -- and one that's without doubt right for many people.

To give an alternative perspective though, recently I upgraded my primary camera from a Canon 1Ds3 to a Canon 1Dx. I could have bought locally - nationally - or internationally. I'm not a big believer in "hold it to see how it feels" because I KNOW that it's going to feel unfamiliar to start with (and indeed it did - to the point where for a minute I was thinking to myself "oh what have I done" - but a month later it's now the 1Ds3 that feels a bit strange) (in fact just 2 days ago I used the 1Ds3 for testing in the studio and got caught out a couple of times with group mode on the ST-E3-RT reverting to ETTL mode ... until I remembered "Doh! - the 1Ds3 can't use group mode) (but I digress). So I knew I'd eventually be comfortable with the 1Dx; buying local would have been the most expensive - the longest delay - and they wouldn't know the first thing about it (LITERALLY). Buying nationally I was able to get the same pricing as buying international, and also thus got a Canon NZ warranty - and - delivery pretty much at the same time they would have been available from overseas. So in this case I went with "buying nationally".

In the case of my 5 600EX-RT flashes I got an unbelieveable run-around trying to buy nationally; according to them "Canon didn't have any firm dates for delivery" so I called Canon myself and was quite agitated at not only did they not have any delivery date, but didn't even really know what the product was - didn't return calls - didn't return eMails - UNBELIEVABLE. So I ordered from Adorama - paid about $400 more (in total) and had them here in 2 weeks (would have been 1 but I needed to register as an importer -- which fell on a long weekend).

Point I'm trying to make is that popping into a local shop to look at both wasn't even an option - and if it had of been then it would have been the most expensive and with the least support - and probably with a longer lead time. Or put another way - "they never really made it out of the starting blocks".

[Andrew76]

Actually, it's more an issue of environment. For example, someone has already taken the pain of shipping that D800 from Japan, to New Zealand, and has decided to stock it in their 'local shop'. Energy has been spent on getting that camera to your next door. When you go to purchase it online, more energy has to be spent needlessly to heed the same end result.

I'm not talking about 'buy it from us, or someday we won't be here to help you' at all. The amount of energy, fuel, and labour that's wasted on a daily basis getting products to people who wouldn't normally have them, ie bananas to a guy who lives in Southern Ontario, when I could go down the street and buy a bag of apples from a man who sells them from his own tree is astronomical. And Canada is a small market in comparison. Imagine what is spent in the US on a daily basis.

Now again, I'm not an environmentalist, and the bananas to apples analogy was probably not my best example, but what I'm trying to get across is that this is becoming such a disposable society, there is already so much waste. If something costs you marginally more to buy from someone who's local, and has already taken the pains to import the product, there may just be more than one reason to do so.

[thequacksoflife]

Colin

I do accept it's horses for courses, I've bought direct from the web myself.

Going for the same family of cameras is, i think, different than swapping to a totally different style and brand.

What struck me today was that here was a camera, the Olympus E-M5, that has garnered lots of praise and it wasn't until I held it that I knew I wouldn't buy it. It felt so awkward, my friend was watching me playing with it and she said I looked uncomfortable. Most odd. As a Nikon dSLR user (well now ex user). I've picked up Panasonic m4/3, Nikon 1, a Canon 7-d and now a Fuji and all felt fine so you can imagine I was a bit surprised at my reaction. My friend is a Canon user and she felt the same. As I say most odd.

I do admit that I am in a small country where I don't have to travel far to a good dealer.

My point is that there is a place for a good dealer. Even if not all need them.

kind regards

[Colin Southern]

Actually, it's more an issue of environment. For example, someone has already taken the pain of shipping that D800 from Japan, to New Zealand, and has decided to stock it in their 'local shop'. Energy has been spent on getting that camera to your next door. When you go to purchase it online, more energy has to be spent needlessly to heed the same end result.

I don't get it - it comes via courier regardless - only the destination is different. But even if I were to use an "environmental model", how much extra energy would I use earning the money to pay the extra $$$ from buying local? Perhaps an extra drive all the way into and out of town for me - an assistant - and a model for an extra photo shoot?

[Colin Southern]

My point is that there is a place for a good dealer. Even if not all need them.

I don't disagree, but the "problem" I have where I live is that the type of "dealer" ("franchise") that we have in our parts will sell a camera - or a TV - or a washing machine - or an electric jug. They "talk the talk" but unfortunately it's just sales talk - they can't "walk the walk".

[Black Pearl]

Two points:

1. A local dealer is always going to be more expensive than a huge multi national because he will buy and sell a handful of a particular camera a year and not a crate full of them every week. Nikon, other brands are the same to varying degrees, will not give small stores competitive discounts, they won't even let the vast majority of them sell what Nikon class as "pro' lines. Its not really fair to criticise your local dealer for being more expensive - its not his fault. He has to make a profit and as his buy price is higher so his retail price will be higher too. If we have a gripe it should be at the manufacturers who refuse to support the high street and only care about box shifting.

2. Price is not the real issue - trust is the real issue. If you are lucky enough to have a fantastic local store, with staff who know what they are talking about, who have been there for a good number of years, who offer great customer satisfaction and whom you trust you will pay the extra to buy from them....fact. The problem comes when we don't have this, for no fault of our own, and then price becomes an issue. If you are lucky enough to have a store like that to hand you wouldn't think twice about paying for the service, because it is the service from the people you have grown to trust that is important.

I work for a national camera chain and while I'll there are vast differences in the level of service from store to store and location to location I pride myself on the fact that I have built a customer base who trust me, my team and who class my shop as part of their photography. Be that part of their business or part of their hobby it doesn't really matter, the trust is there and if they want something, information, a favour, a chat, or a new piece of equipment they will come to me first. I'm not stupid enough to think I get every sale but I've sold items to people on the basis of my knowledge and my teams knowledge when I also know for a fact they understand they are paying a little extra for it. They trust me and they are willing to pay a little more for that trust. It a wonderful feeling and one I am very proud of and one I have spent 23 years building. Will it always be the case? I don't know, I will always strive to offer the very best customer service I can, I will staff and motivate a store to do the same but I need the likes of Nikon and the rest to understand that simply shifting boxes is not the best business model and that they need to support their high street outlets so trey can stay reasonably competitive.

[Colin Southern]

1. A local dealer is always going to be more expensive than a huge multi national because he will buy and sell a handful of a particular camera a year and not a crate full of them every week. Nikon, other brands are the same to varying degrees, will not give small stores competitive discounts, they won't even let the vast majority of them sell what Nikon class as "pro' lines. Its not really fair to criticise your local dealer for being more expensive - its not his fault. He has to make a profit and as his buy price is higher so his retail price will be higher too.

In my case anyway it's not a "criticism" per se - it's just a reality. If price is an issue then as a buyer I'm really not concerned as to WHY something costs more -- only the fact that it DOES cost more.

If we have a gripe it should be at the manufacturers who refuse to support the high street and only care about box shifting.

I think we also need to keep in mind though that it's not just the local businessman who has to make a profit -- the manufacturer needs to make one too. And from that perspective, it costs the manufacturer/distributor one hell of a lot more (on a per unit basis) to sell 3 units to "Joe's camera store" than it does to sell 5000 units to "Acme International".

2. Price is not the real issue - trust is the real issue. If you are lucky enough to have a fantastic local store, with staff who know what they are talking about, who have been there for a good number of years, who offer great customer satisfaction and whom you trust you will pay the extra to buy from them....fact. The problem comes when we don't have this, for no fault of our own, and then price becomes an issue. If you are lucky enough to have a store like that to hand you wouldn't think twice about paying for the service, because it is the service from the people you have grown to trust that is important.

Absolutely - couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, words like "service", "trust", and "relationships" are concepts that are seldom put in to practice with all of the stores that I know of in my part of the world. All they want is my money -- they're not interested in any kind of personal or on-going relationship afterwards. Sad but true in these parts anyway, which is why - when they complain that the online ordering and chain stores are murdering them - I say that "it's not murder - it's suicide".

I work for a national camera chain and while I'll there are vast differences in the level of service from store to store and location to location I pride myself on the fact that I have built a customer base who trust me, my team and who class my shop as part of their photography. Be that part of their business or part of their hobby it doesn't really matter, the trust is there and if they want something, information, a favour, a chat, or a new piece of equipment they will come to me first. I'm not stupid enough to think I get every sale but I've sold items to people on the basis of my knowledge and my teams knowledge when I also know for a fact they understand they are paying a little extra for it. They trust me and they are willing to pay a little more for that trust. It a wonderful feeling and one I am very proud of and one I have spent 23 years building. Will it always be the case? I don't know, I will always strive to offer the very best customer service I can, I will staff and motivate a store to do the same but I need the likes of Nikon and the rest to understand that simply shifting boxes is not the best business model and that they need to support their high street outlets so trey can stay reasonably competitive.

I hear what you're saying, but at the end of the day, the likes of Canon and Nikon ARE very successful - but either way, they're not going to listen to us. It would be nice to be able to say "ha ha - told you so" when big businesses fall flat on their faces, but in reality it just doesn't seem to happen.