The market for any product whose availability is effectively zero is nonexistent. You got to get them out there for people to buy before you can sell them. When was the last time you saw an LX, or a Leica R6.2, on your dealers shelves?
Those tiny minox film copies of old cameras are essentially very expensive nik-naks. They are in local camera stores, they are selling. The problem is the manufactures want to sell tens of thousands of something or not bother with it. How many of you have seen an MZ-S on your dealers shelves. When they do show up they are gone in two weeks. The problem with expensive cameras is not salability it is availability. One marketing expert said, "you can sell 50,000 of anything in the US market". How many cameras sell in the 50,0000 piece range? You can't sell them if no one knows they exist, or can get their hand on one is they do know. The dealers say there is no profit in the low end cameras because Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc sell them at cost; but do they stock the high end cameras? No they don't (the few that do seem to have no trouble selling them). I have said, before, and probably will again, that Pentax needs to make a world leader camera and have one on every high class dealers shelves even if they have to put it there on a consignment basis. It is easy to sell down, it is hard to sell up especially when the up is not even in the store. Ciao, Graywolf ---------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: Roland Mabo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 12:00 PM Subject: Re: New Manual, All Mechanical, Retro-Rangefinder > > On 20 Feb 2002 at 21:03, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > > > > Anyway, the point of this is not how swell CV is, but to wonder aloud > > > how it is that a company, who a few years ago had very little or no > > > brand recognition, has moved to become an innovator in this area, > > > creating and marketing reasonably priced products of good quality, > > > while companies like Pentax are busy spewing out mostly plastic, > > > consumer junk and mediocrity. > > Cosina/Voigtl�nder copies Leica-M serie. I wouldn't name Cosina/Voigtl�nder "innovator" because they are good at copying Leica. Pentax, on the other hand, makes unique cameras. They don't copy existing cameras, put in some plastic, and sells them cheaper than the > original. Pentax makes new, original, designs. Like the MZ-S. > > > > I would truly like to see pentax make a few bold moves - retro, > > MZ-5(n). > > > > advanced engineering and design > > MZ-S > > > , unique optics that fill a niche - > > FA 43, 77 and 31 Limited... > > > > they can do it, and I wish they would. > > They've done it and are still doing it. > > > > If CV can make exceptional lenses for half that price, why > > > not Pentax? If CV can produce a camera to sell for half that amount, > > > why not Pentax? > > The Cosina/Voigtl�nder lenses are all manual focusing with no internal electronics. > The Cosina/Voigtl�nder bodies uses existing and old technology. Nothing is new there. > That's why it cost so little. They don't have to pay the R&D department. > > > I'd love it if Pentax could > > find a way to make a high quality, simple, basic camera with a few > > good lenses. > > I believe that the market for such a camera is non-existant. Leica R6.2 and Olympus OM is no more, because of poor sales. Contax is moving towards advanced autofocus cameras and lenses, because there isn't enought market interest for their high quality, simple > and basic cameras with a few good lenses. > > Best regards, > Roland > - > This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, > go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to > visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org . - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
