I would say that the younger generation is getting used to shop online more and more. Even NYSE operations are becoming more and more electronic, and the physical presence will soon disappear from NYSE. I understand the preference of many PDMLers to play with the toys locally, but I suspect the importance of the gadgets to be present at the local store (especially if there aren't any available) maybe a bit overrated.
When I bought my first Pentax (ZX-5n) back in 1997, I lived in Urbana, Illinois. After spending 1-2 hours in the only local photo camera store, trying N70 and N90, I decided that I couldn't afford N90, but ergonomics of N70 was bad for me. So, I purchased Pentax ZX5n after reading about its manual knob-and-buttons- controls. I bought it from either Adorama or B&H, - unseen, as Pentax was not available locally. (Two years ago I wrote about my relations with Pentax in this message to PDML: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg528435.html ) Livining again in a small large-college town, I don't have access to any reasonable brick-and-mortar camera store (I don't count the recently disappeared Ritz camera or the still-present BestBuy as such). I bought K-7, and just last month K-5 IIs also unseen. But when I was buying *istDS, I lived in San Diego, and I don't think I went to a local store to see it before I bought it. Maybe I did, - but it was not a decisive factor. More over, while living in NYC, I've never made it to B&H (although I was frequently visiting Adorama that was closer, and where I was using the photolab for printing photos. So, are the physical stores helpful? Yes, - when I needed to figure out which of 2-3 photo bags that I was looking at was batter for me, I did that choice at the stores. But living in the town that has relatively few reasonable stores of any kind, - I am so much used to get everything online (even diapers are bought from Amazon, - via a scheduled monthly delivery), that it makes the life much easier in many aspects. (Except that I am behind on breaking down and recycling shipping boxes.) Igor -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
