From: "P. J. Alling"
He leaves out an important point. Marketing. Part of the reason Canon
maintains it's market share is that it's available everywhere. I can go
into a Big Box Store, (Walmart, Sears, Target), an Electronics Store,
(Best Buy, PC-Richards, etc.), a buyers club, (Sams, B.J.'s, Costco). or
the only traditional camera store (Milford Camera, and it's still a hike
of 30 miles to be local), in my area, and actually handle a Canon. For
that matter I can handle an Olympus or a Nikon. In most cases we're
talking their bottom feeders for their EVIL or SLR lines, but heck I can
try them out and purchase them sometimes for less than I can get the
same model on line. My choice for Pentax is I get to buy them on line.
That's a failure of marketing. Especially, Iif I can believe them),
since the Camera store tells me they;d love to carry Pentax except the
rep. won't return their calls!
Pentax acted like they didn't want to sell cameras any more.
Back before Wolf Camera went under, one of the local stores had a K10D
in stock with the kit lens. They said they could order the K20D, but no
one had one in stock so I could actually pick it up and hold it to my
eye. Plus the K20D from Wolf didn't have a US Warranty, it was from some
after market warranty provider (who I think went out of business when
Wolf folded).
Supposedly Walmart & Sam's Club had the K-7. I'd go to Pentax USA's home
page and follow the "Where to buy" links & they'd give me the address of
every Walmart & Sam's Club within 50 miles of my zip code. Just out of
curiosity, I followed up and actually went to a bunch of Walmarts from
the list to see if they did have the K-7. None of them did. They didn't
even have Optios. None of the "camera department" drones at Walmart even
knew Pentax still existed. A couple did remember that Pentax once upon a
time used to make the K1000.
Both of the local independent camera dealers around here used to be
Pentax dealers. I bought my *ist-D from one of them. But by the time I
got home from Iraq, both of them were telling me the same story. They'd
sell Pentax if they could get them, but Pentax wouldn't even let them
order. I did get my K10D from one of them, but they had to order it from
B&H.
Interestingly enough the same Pentax USA "Where to buy" link that
directed me to Walmart for the K7 also still listed both of my local
independents.
I got my K20D because someone traded in a complete kit (the previous
owner kept all the packaging, manuals, software ...) for a CaNikonon.
When I was making my last trip out west in October 2007, I stopped at a
local independent I knew (from my days as a wandering service tech) in
Asheville, NC who used to be a Pentax dealer. They didn't have any new
Pentax stuff left other than a pair of Pentax binoculars that were the
biggest binoculars I have ever seen. I could hold the eyepieces a foot
from my face & still see through them. The barrels were about 2 feet
long, and they were so powerful you could see the other side of the moon
in full daylight. I'm pretty sure they were meant for astronomy.
But they were listed at $1000 and I just didn't have that kind of dough
to spend. Wish I did, because somebody bought them, and I've never been
able to identify what model they were. They were gone the next time I
stopped by there.
I don't know what Pentax *has* to do, but I doubt anyone, including
Pentax, knows what they're going to do.
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