----- Original Message ----- From: "Kostas Kavoussanakis"
Subject: Re: Apples and Oranges (was Re: Why and How I switched to Canon (for those who care) long)
Surely selling cameras as loss leaders was a bad idea that had nothing to do with the customer. No?
Yup. As I said in the post, it ruined the new camera market from a profitability standpoint. The boxes were already in on it, and were selling at or below our cost anyway, and customers have this weird idea that the best price is the one to buy at, without looking at the long term consequences.
The real problem, from my perspective now is the volume rebate programs and sliding cost price scales based on volume purchasing.
This allowed high volume sellers who could afford very low margins, and gave little or no service, either before or after the sale (I was competing head to head with a large grocery store chain for SLR sales) to completely undermine the ability of the smaller stores to compete on price.
I think if the manufacturers themselves hand't been such whores, things would have worked out differently, and real camera stores might have stood a chance.
Canon was, I believe, the worst of the lot with bribing the big players with rebates and tiered pricing based on volume sales.
Ultimately though, when the boxes got involved in photo finishing in a big way, the fate of the ndependant lab/store was pretty much sealed.
William Robb
