Buying from local store...

[JohnRichard]

So, my local camera store still sells film. They don't have a huge selection. They're prices are high, but they are all older, and most still shoot on film, although the store has gone mostly d-word.

Now my question: Would you buy film from a camera store if you knew it was not refrigerated/frozen, and did not have a high turn over. It hurts me to say, because I like the store and its employees, but I can get better prices and products online. Of course this is the case everywhere.

Also, when I say high prices, let me give you an example. They have 4 rolls of Ektachrome 64T. They want $19/per for it. They are not going to order anymore. I told them I would buy all four rolls for $50 (which is about what I would pay on Freestyle), they said no. So there it sits on the shelf, collecting dust.


I should also say they are not going to go out of business any time soon. They do a LOT of rental and retail sales via D-word. They have a nice selection of used analogue gear, including a Nikon F, and a Canon F-1 that I REAAAAAALLY want...

Thoughts?

 

[Ian Grant]

This is why companies like Ilford & Kodak etc have problems with film sales, poor retailers who are short sighted.

You don't mind paying slightly more to buy from a store, there's no postage etc but you don't want to be ripped off either.

Ian

 

[Michael W]

They are offering professional slide film that is not kept in a fridge & asking full price? I'd be wary at half price. There probably isn't much margin on it, but they should at least keep it cold.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Just buy what is reasonable. I buy some from my local camera store. Keep local merchants in business.

Jeff

 

[Sirius Glass]

Just buy what is reasonable. I buy some from my local camera store. Keep local merchants in business.

Ditto.

If not reasonable, use the internet.

Steve

 

[Q.G.]

That times are getting hard for film selling shops does not mean that we need to keep shops, who don't know what they are doing to the product they are hoping to sell to you, open anymore than we needed to when times were better.

If my local store had not stored film the way it should have been, i would not have bought from them and would have told them so as well. (Nowadays, the only thing they have in stock is a "we can order that for you", to which i always reply "i can, and will, do that myself, thanks".)

 

[removed account4]

it sounds like your store is like the one in the town where i grew up.
they had an expired box of tmx 100 100sheets when i say expired, i mean
the box was covered with dust, and the date on the box was 10 years before.
the price was 100$. i asked for a discount seeing it was 10years + old and they refused ..
i went to b/h and bought a new box for 67$ ..
this is the same store that toyo told me were dealers of their gear, and the manager
didn't know toyo was a camera company ...

 

[railwayman3]

I remember, some time ago, saying something to a local business man about the need to "support local shops"...his reply was "Why, they don't support my business"!

Perhaps his comment came over a tad harsh, but it's a point if your local shop is trying to sell you pro film not properly stored, at full price.

The mail order suppliers have seen an opportunity to meet a demand and support photographers, and set up a mail order business accordingly. Why didn't your local store see that demand and do that? (Same reason as me....I wish I'd thought of the idea a few years ago, but it's no use complaining )

 

[mike c]

With d-----l far more popular to the masses there is no profit in film any more.Every square in of a store has to make money,if it don't sell the store loses.Unless you are a specialty with a wide clientele and internet access ,Freestly, keh,ect .

 

[JohnRichard]

Well, I like freestyles prices, and they carry everything I need. They are polite on the phone, and answer all my questions. Even going out of their way to find information for me.
I don't know if they refrigerate the film before it gets to me, but I live 2 days by Fedex away, so its warmed up by the time it gets here anyhow.

I certainly will not buy any film products from them. I just go to buy chems. I may not even do that soon because my orders are increasingly becoming larger from Freestyle. I may just order everything at once and try to save on shipping. I have moved about an hour away from that store now, and it actually costs more to drive to the store, than to get it shipped across the country. Go figure.

 

[Leighgion]

The urging to "buy local," has some foundation, but it's got to be subject to the same conditions you'd always adhere to when patronizing a business. Being local doesn't exempt a shop from proper conduct.

 

[railwayman3]

I ordered 20 assorted Ilford films and 10 Kodachrome 64 (yes, in stock ) from a UK intenet dealer last week, it was here next day at prices well below usual retail. Expiry dates were 2013 for the B&W and 11/2010 (final batch) for the K64.

I'd suggest that these are the kind of dealers who are supporting analogue and deserve our support.

I suppose I should miss the little family camera shop, but there again, over the years, I've been sold or offered quite a lot of out-of-date film, caked-up chemicals and faulty equipment by these friendly local stores........

 

[John Shriver]

I have a local Calumet store, their film is stored cold, and the prices are really only a small bit higher than B&H. So I support them enthusiastically.

Another local store ditched their film fridge. I stopped buying film there. Plain and simple.

 

[rphenning]

my local store fired me very unethically. their film prices aren't stellar either. I stick with freestyle.

"I don't know if they refrigerate the film before it gets to me"

They do.

 

[Martin Reed]

Probably what we're seeing is the final stages in the breakdown of a distribution system, a combination of increased internet takeup and market volume decrease.

I can only speak for the UK, but the trajectory is probably similar in the US - some years ago there were attempts by major photo material manufacturers to facilitate smaller dealers handling a wider range and more quantity of stock - so having seen a problem looming they attempted an overhaul, working with the existing system to make it more productive. As time went on that initiative failed.

Where we are now is that the smallest dealers are now of no consequence, and are being increasingly marginalised, while the biggest gun of all is starting to be brought out of the armoury - manufacturers direct sales.

The situation in the UK is maybe more distorted than the US, as here over 20 years a very large proportion of independent high street shops were brought into one enormous company, which worked out badly in the long term.

So don't blame your small independents too much, they've been badly treated in recent years, and are playing with a very poor hand of cards.

 

[railwayman3]

So don't blame your small independents too much, they've been badly treated in recent years, and are playing with a very poor hand of cards.

I don't blame them at all, and it's regretable when anyone's business fails through no fault of their own, or even through not moving with the times.

But not all of the small businesses were perfect...a local shop fobbed me off when my first "expensive" camera (bought after saving up for two years as a student) was continually faulty (and it was them who persuaded me to have that make, rather than my original choice...no doubt a bigger profit margin...)
Another sold me faulty chemicals which ruined holiday film from a one-off student trip (I checked the batch number with Kodak....eight years old!)
And, as for outdated film....either they don't mention it, or say "it doesn't matter"...

It's a wonder that I didn't give up on photography...