I understand what you're saying Frank...
This is one of those topics where what side of the argument one's on makes all the difference.
1. The camera shop opened it's doors and expects me to peruse, hoping for a sale.
2. Do they have the right to expect a sale just because I walked in their door?
3. No.
4. Should I hand them over some cash simply because they let me come in their store?
5. No. (I'm not the kind that will spend 15 - 60 min wasting a salesman's time either, so that may be a difference). Actually that's a cost of doing business which might be why their prices are higher.
6. If the store were to discount their price to induce me to buy, I might.
This all get's back to philosphy I think. The camera shop is a capitalist venture, hoping to make as much profit off me as possible. The company I work for hopes to pay me as little as possible and mark up my rate to the end client as high as possible, again maximizing profit. So should I dupefully turn a blind eye and take it on the chin, or should I as a smart consumer, try to conserve as much of my capital as possible, making it stretch further?
Those same camera shop employees probably shop at a big name department/electronics store when shopping for washers, dryers and audio equipment, not the mom & pop appliance stores. They probably purchase their medicines at a big name pharmacy, not the mom & pop, for exactly the same reasons as I may not have purchased a camera from them. It's sort of what goes around comes around. Those same camera store employees also take the in-store employee discount for photography-related purchases. They don't pay full price either.
:) :) :)
Tom C.
From: frank theriault <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: pentax-discuss@pdml.net To: pentax-discuss@pdml.net Sturn ubject: Re: Film is dead... Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 20:04:32 -0400
On 4/25/05, Tom C <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
> To me the best thing about the mom & pops is that I could go in and peruse. <snip>
If anyone really thinks that the prices at the big-boxes or on the internet will stay down once the little guys have all been driven out of business, I have this bridge in New York for sale. <g>
If there's one thing I hate (sorry, Tom) it's people who go into the mom and pop, to look at an item, then go off to the big-box or the internet and buy it for cheaper. At least if one's going to put them out of business, have the decency not to use their services for free. Maybe say, "You know, this is a nice camera. I'm off to buy in on-line. Here's $20 for your trouble; I'm still getting it for a bargain even after giving you this $20."
Actually, I don't know how those little guys have survived for the last number of decades. First there was big department stores. Then malls. Now big boxes, Walmart and the internet. I gotta give 'em credit, they've hung in there, but I really don't know how much longer they can continue to do so...
cheers, frank
cheers, frank
-- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
