Local camera retailer

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Looking on their ( Park Camera) web site for Pansonic MFT lenses it appears they only Have one in stock at the time of this post. Thank godness I can still go onto Japanes retailers for getting Panasonic MFT lens.
One reads abouit shopping out of town or abroad and no wonder why. If UK retailers don't even stock products
Panasonic really needs to thinK about their market and customers because at the moment it seems they are deliberatly driving their customers away.
Having said that I have the 7 lenes I wanted and four of them direct from Japan. as well as the G9 and G9ii also the DC-TZ95 compact. Also own the pansonic HC-X1500 camcorder which is an amazing bit of kit.
So come on Panasonic provide the products and people will buy
 
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Mark why should I? obviously you have not looked at their web site= re Panasonic MFT lenes
 
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With all due respect people going to Japan, buying from people like Panamoz etc are part of the reason local camera shops no longer stock much. When Jessops traded purely from their shop in Leicester and produced their awful large sheet of scrawl with discount prices people travelled from all over and local shops started to suffer. This is simply cause and effect. I worked in photgrpahic wholesale & retail and we woud forever have customers complaining **** is £ cheaper than you. I used to suggest we couldn't price match and to buy it and the usual response was "but they haven't got it" a colleague was very adepet at saying "come back when we haven't got it and ours will £5 less than tehm"
 
Think about what's involved in having a shop: rent, rates, utilities, staffing - that's the basic overhead, so for a small shop you could be talking about easily £4-5k a month in cost. Then add stock, and for a camera shop selling even just a few brands, you'd be talking about at least £40k at a rough guess. Most of that stock will sit there for months unless you cut margins to the bone. But say you do cut your margins...how do you cover a monthly cost of £5k plus interest on the loan to buy stock? You need to sell a lot of kit to cover costs. Frankly it's a mugs game.
 
The few “bricks and mortar “ shops which still exist survive mainly on their mail-order customers. Especially so the independents who only have one or two branches. Maybe more in Greater London, but then there are, strangely enough, a lot of people who live out of reach of the great metropolis.
 
lindsay said:
Think about what's involved in having a shop:
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However, the customer is always right...

...even when they ask for the moon and only want to pay for a small meteorite. :exit:
 
A retailer will typically stock items based on historic and projected sales figures - they will only stock enough to cover expected sales in a given period.
Unfortunately, this becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy with less popular items/brands - as if they only have a small selection in stock, people are then less likely to visit for that brand, lowering sales, which leads to them stocking less...
 
A bricks and mortar store is something of a novelty these days, I just ordered some leather Olympus straps from SRS, I didn't realise that they had closed the store in Watford last year and moved to a unit in a business park, I don't think there's a store in the West Midlands, when I started in photography there we're loads,
 
Nikon photographer said:
... when I started in photography there we're loads,
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When I first got interested in photography, you could spend a whole day window shopping in London's West End and still not have seen it all!
 
And unfortunately a lot of people will go into a shop ,handle the goods and then if they like it order online . In actual fact the only advantage of buying from a small u.k shop these days is if you need credit ,but even that’s possible with most online sellers I.e PayPal, klarna etc
 
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AndrewFlannigan said:
When I first got interested in photography, you could spend a whole day window shopping in London's West End and still not have seen it all!
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Was that round soho , nudge nudge wink wink LOL
 
the black fox said:
Was that round soho , nudge nudge wink wink LOL
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At thirteen, I think even the most desperate "lady of negotiable affection" would have considered me off-limits. :wideyed:
 
I have mixed feeling on this. I want local camera shops but I can see why there aren't any. There used to be three camera shops in town but now there's only a section in Currys. If I want to go to a dedicated camera shop I suppose it means a trip to Newcastle or Leeds if there are any there so I buy on line. I really would like a local camera shop but I think photography with the sort of cameras and lenses we here tend to have is ever more a niche thing now so the question is would the market support a dedicated shop? As all the ones here have gone I guess the answer is No. Looking at stock on line, in the OP's case perhaps MFT is a niche within a niche?

I'm off to Thailand later and camera shops are everywhere. I remember looking in camera shop windows when there and they seemed to have every camera and lens I'd be interested in in the window. Sadly in the UK those days are gone and we're lucky if even the likes of Currys stay open as frankly most people are skint or at least being careful with money and the country is generally on its knees. It's hardly surprising camera gear is rare on the high street and even on line.
 
woof woof said:
I have mixed feeling on this. I want local camera shops but I can see why there aren't any. There used to be three camera shops in town but now there's only a section in Currys. If I want to go to a dedicated camera shop I suppose it means a trip to Newcastle or Leeds if there are any there so I buy on line. I really would like a local camera shop but I think photography with the sort of cameras and lenses we here tend to have is ever more a niche thing now so the question is would the market support a dedicated shop? As all the ones here have gone I guess the answer is No. Looking at stock on line, in the OP's case perhaps MFT is a niche within a niche?

I'm off to Thailand later and camera shops are everywhere. I remember looking in camera shop windows when there and they seemed to have every camera and lens I'd be interested in in the window. Sadly in the UK those days are gone and we're lucky if even the likes of Currys stay open as frankly most people are skint or at least being careful with money and the country is generally on its knees. It's hardly surprising camera gear is rare on the high street and even on line.
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I think for "browsing", the SOHO of Thailand is called Patpong Market - so I've been told
lindsay said:
Think about what's involved in having a shop: rent, rates, utilities, staffing - that's the basic overhead, so for a small shop you could be talking about easily £4-5k a month in cost. Then add stock, and for a camera shop selling even just a few brands, you'd be talking about at least £40k at a rough guess. Most of that stock will sit there for months unless you cut margins to the bone. But say you do cut your margins...how do you cover a monthly cost of £5k plus interest on the loan to buy stock? You need to sell a lot of kit to cover costs. Frankly it's a mugs game.
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Thats why the bricks and mortar have to now offer something that the online can't, like events. Odd how the customers want it cheap so go online but also want the ability to go try out in person, but haven't realised the former is eliminating the latter.

The way the clothes industry works if baffling that you order and pay for a whole bunch, receive them in the mail then try on at home and send back the ones you don't want. Or know EXACTLY what size you are in each clothing manufacturers sizes charts.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
At thirteen, I think even the most desperate "lady of negotiable affection" would have considered me off-limits. :wideyed:
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It's a digression, but I had to answer: when I was a fresh-faced 14-year old living in Hong Kong, if I ventured through WanChai of an evening I would get many requests to "have a good time..."
 
lindsay said:
It's a digression, but I had to answer: when I was a fresh-faced 14-year old living in Hong Kong, if I ventured through WanChai of an evening I would get many requests to "have a good time..."
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but 10 dollar doesn't stretch as far as it did back then due to inflation, unless you opt for the "panamoz" version of good time.
 
I used to really enjoy the Mr.CAD warehouse by the Windmill Road junction in Croydon - an amazing array of new and used kit, studio lighting, darkroom stuff and even a coldroom with papers. Alex (the owner) was usually about in the store, and seemed to have a pretty good idea of what they had & where. It's all long-gone now.

The last new camera I bought was from LCE in Leamington 2013 - I'd seen it cheaper online, so negotiated a bit of a discount and was pleased to have bought from bricks'n'mortar. Ever since it's been used kit.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
I used to really enjoy the Mr.CAD warehouse by the Windmill Road junction in Croydon - an amazing array of new and used kit, studio lighting, darkroom stuff and even a coldroom with papers. Alex (the owner) was usually about in the store, and seemed to have a pretty good idea of what they had & where. It's all long-gone now.
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Not really. They moved to Pimlico in 2013. They're still open.
 
GordonM said:
With all due respect people going to Japan, buying from people like Panamoz etc are part of the reason local camera shops no longer stock much. When Jessops traded purely from their shop in Leicester and produced their awful large sheet of scrawl with discount prices people travelled from all over and local shops started to suffer. This is simply cause and effect. I worked in photgrpahic wholesale & retail and we woud forever have customers complaining **** is £ cheaper than you. I used to suggest we couldn't price match and to buy it and the usual response was "but they haven't got it" a colleague was very adepet at saying "come back when we haven't got it and ours will £5 less than tehm"
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Yes, my father used to travel to leicester to go to Jessops and I can remember the queue outside the front door to get in! I seem to remember it was a poky little place as well.
 
DemiLion said:
Not really. They moved to Pimlico in 2013. They're still open.
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Yes really. Sure some stuff went to Pimlico, but the original warehouse is all gone and the new premises is 'much smaller'.

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