by tying some of their compensation to production. When I was selling cameras
the big money was "Prize" money, usually but not necessarily paid by the manufacturer
or importer. Even then Pentax didn't offer much extra incentive, of course back then once the
ME/MX cameras took off they didn't really need to. By the way, the item with the
highest incentive by far was the cheap jack 110 camera that was actually imported by
the company I worked for. Fully half of it's purchase price was paid to the sales person
on top of the normal commission rate. Most of the people working there tried to sell
at least one of those to every customer...
At 06:01 PM 10/11/03, you wrote:
I used to work in a camera store and I can tell you why the sales person tried to sell you a Canon. Most of you may already know this, but I will say it for those who don't. Reps in retail stores get commissions, obviously, but they don't always get the same amount for selling different brands, i.e. they might get higher commission for selling the Canon. In addition, some stores hold competitions to see who can sell the most of one brand or even one product to the tune of a huge bonus. I tried to exhibit a little more integrity than that, but I have seen sales people sell the completely wrong camera to a customer just to get the bigger commission, even if they had to lie and coerce to do it. I understand your frustration.
Dave Madsen
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 3:34 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Henry's Camera very annoying
This is a venting exercise for me so I apologize if this is too long. For the second time this month Henry's sales reps have annoyed me to no end. Both times I went into the store asking about the Pentax Digital ist D and both times some arrogant sales person tried to sell me Canon crap instead of Pentax. Both times, two different sales people, said the Pentax wasn't worth the price and that Canon was better. That may or may not be true, but these guys were likely Canon users who didn't know squat about high end Pentax stuff and didn't even have the courtesy to pretend that Pentax had a very competitive digital camera. Both times I gave the sales reps an ear full. The KID today tried to tell me the Rebel D was better than the ist-d. I told him it was plastic crap. He said it had more features than the ist-d. I didn't know enough about the two cameras to argue with him, but I did tell him that my Pentax lenses would not work on the Canon. Besides that, what these people don't get is that the more gadgets or "features" a camera has does not make it better, just more complicated. I want a camera that feels good, that is intuitive to use and has the features I need and use. Pentax scores high marks here. Pentax should not even be dealing with Henry's if this is the crap the sales reps are selling customers. If I wanted a Canon I would have asked about the Canons, I certainly don't need some kid telling me who makes the best cameras. Today, I walked up to the counter, the ist-d was right below the kid, and said "I see you have the Ist-D. (I expected him to say something like, oh yea it just came in it's a nice camera. Pentax has done a great job on their first Digital SLR.) Instead the kid says something like, Oh you want to see the Rebel D. I said no the Ist-D. and off he went trying to tell me the Canon was better than the Pentax. What a moron. He might have made a $3,000 sale if I had been in the market. Now I won't even buy film from Henry's anymore... Vic
I drink to make other people interesting.
-- George Jean Nathan
