Ilford Price Hike on 17th?

My local distributor here in Crete informed me the other day that all Ilford product are to receive a price rise, some all the way to double, Monday 17th of April.
Is that to affect only Greece or globally?

arigram said:

My local distributor here in Crete informed me the other day that all Ilford product are to receive a price rise, some all the way to double, Monday 17th of April.
Is that to affect only Greece or globally?

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If some products double then they shall be effectively removed from the market. Ilford products are already priced to the high end and there is, I think, no significant room for substantial price hikes. Items like multigrade filters have already priced themselves out of the market.
Crete, on the other hand, is a "special" market. Greece is a high priced niche market as long as one is talking about Athens or Thessaloniki but when one gets down to Crete one is no longer talking about market. Chania is probably a more likely place for photo supplies than Heraklion and I frankly can't think of a single good source.. everyone just seems to go to Athens to get whatever they need.. all I've found is a bit of a service industry around the tourists so beyond mini-lab supplies...
Greece was quite Agfa land so I imagine that the distributor might be trying to leverage a bit of uncertainty and worries about price hikes to get in some last minute hoarding to raise some quick cash...

If so they are already too high. A dollar a sheet for 2x3, come on folks that's like the oil companies. If Kodak and Agfa came back to the table they could make a killing.

I sell Ilford products at my retail site. I haven't heard of any price changes in Canada.
-Rob Skeoch
BigCameraWorkshops.com

Are you sure it's not just a case of the local distributor cashing in on lack of alternatives? We used to have that situation in South Africa whereby there was no alternative but to buy through the local guy so it was at whatever price they set. Can't you source the stuff from Spain as it's been mentioned in other threads that Ilford stock is cheaper there than the UK.

Before I got to into this, I would write to Simon and ask him if Illford intends to raise prices again, often times distributors or even individual stores will raise a price and try to blame it on the companies.

Dave

I believe that the price increase is the real deal but so what? One has to expect an occasional price increase in other consumer products, why should sheet film be any different? It is important that Ilford stick around and keep things competitive and product diverse or the alternative would be real price escalation well into the double digits regularly. Whenever a company considers such a business decision to increase prices management takes into careful consideration the potential demand destruction that could occur after implementation. As a result, I feel that this price increase is in fact a sign of good things ahead.

Cheers!

I just got a new Freestyle catalog two days ago and it touts lowered prices on over 300 items. For instance the new catalog vs the Fall '05 one lists Ilford MGIV FB 11x14 paper at $56.95 from $63.99. The same paper in warmtone is now $77.99 down from $89.99!! (these are for 50 sheet boxes) Delta pro 100 4x5 film is now $20.99 down from $$21.99.

So if Ilford is planning any such increase it sure will be a HUGE! surprise to Freestyle. Stock up quick!!

Kodak raised prices today.

Bummer about EK prices. Here's the press release, 3% to 17% increase, cites raw materials cost increases.

Press release.

Anytime demand decreases, prices rise.

and now KOdak

Kodak Hikes Prices for Plates, Film

By E&P Staff

Published: April 17, 2006 12:15 PM ET

NEW YORK Kodak's Graphic Communications Group announced today a double-digit worldwide price increase for prepress consumables.

The company attributed the increase to several years of "consistently rising energy and raw material costs." Price hikes affect digital and conventional offset printing plates, proofing media, film and chemistry.

Customers are being informed of pricing details on a country-by-country basis

Ilford USA (which is distributer for British & Swiss Ilfords here in N.A.) says all film, paper and chemistry is to rise 6% Some of the roll films are increasing more, but it is hit & miss. Increase is effective for North America May 1, 2006

I'm happy they're still in business

Corey

I can deal with that, as opposed to the alternative...

I think the drop in prices on used camera and darkroom equipment more than offsets this rise, don't you?

That's great. Look how much gas has gone up....I still drive. If they make it I will buy as much as I can afford to support my craft.

If international shipment is not a problem for you, find a distributor/shop that sell at the lowest price and buy products there. That's what I'm about to do. I like to buy consumable items as locally as possible, but when I can't I have to look for other places.

It seems like even with the shipping fee, you could still pay far less than what you normally do for what you want to get.

In Japan, the prices are almost double for Ilford no matter what. This is primarily due to the price-setting of Japan's Ilford distributor Chugai. And the volume of each product is usually small: For Ilford MG FB paper, it's either 10 or 25 sheet packages.

There's no way I can keep buying the stuff in the domestic market. It's just costly but nothing to gain.

In the mean time, I've found the new Oriental VC FB paper to be useful as an alternative. Price-wise, it's in the same league as Ilford, and I kind of like the quality of the Oriental paper better for some reason. This may not work for all the images I have, but for some, it seems like it does.

I am still waiting for Simon's official Ilford take.

If the price increase is too much I will be forced to order from Fotoimpex in Germany which is something I would like to avoid because I want to support my local distributor. He is a very nice guy, he has helped me a lot and is the only one that carries film, paper and chemicals around here. Plus I like going in and buying the stuff instead of ordering big bunches from abroad. I am quite poor and have no much of choice when it comes to price. I spend almost all my paycheck on photo stuff and often to the expense of food (don't go out much lately) so it will hurt me to have to look for a cheaper source of materials but I won't have any other choice.

arigram said:

I spend almost all my paycheck on photo stuff and often to the expense of food (don't go out much lately) so it will hurt me to have to look for a cheaper source of materials but I won't have any other choice.

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Lately I've been drinking a 5 dollar bottle of imported Chilean wine, which is actually pretty good, instead of 10 dollar bottle of French or Italian one!

firecracker said:

Lately I've been drinking a 5 dollar bottle of imported Chilean wine, which is actually pretty good, instead of 10 dollar bottle of French or Italian one!

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The Carmen Merlot isn't that bad.
I am mostly a Iberic peninsulla wine man, rioja, jerez and porto are my favorites, which are not available here at all even if I could afford them.
Today I went for coffee with a friend after many months, just because he
lives in Athens and I don't see him often. The espresso I got cost me 2.30 euros. And I get payed about 700 euros a month.
Oh, well.
Atleast I am well stocked on film and have some paper at the moment.

arigram said:

The Carmen Merlot isn't that bad.
I am mostly a Iberic peninsulla wine man, rioja, jerez and porto are my favorites, which are not available here at all even if I could afford them.
Today I went for coffee with a friend after many months, just because he
lives in Athens and I don't see him often. The espresso I got cost me 2.30 euros. And I get payed about 700 euros a month.
Oh, well.
Atleast I am well stocked on film and have some paper at the moment.

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Yeah, having to choose between the beverages or the photo supplies is hard for me, too.

I think I've blown off a couple of dates recently. What happens is that I meet someone in public, talk about photography, and have a blast with that conversation. But the next thing I know is that I'm back in my darkroom with a fresh package of photo paper and chemicals, and that's about it.

Well, that's life, too, I guess.

firecracker said:

Yeah, having to choose between the beverages or the photo supplies is hard for me, too.

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Have you considered home brewing/distilling? It's far easier than coating your own film stock.

When it goes wrong you call it stop bath

arigram said:

The espresso I got cost me 2.30 euros. And I get payed about 700 euros a month.
Oh, well.
Atleast I am well stocked on film and have some paper at the moment.

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I have sallary of 400EURO per month and 150EURO as war veteran/invalid. But, espresso here costs 0,5 EURO and up to 1,5 EURO in snobish posh places. When see your sallary/prices ratio Arigram, I can only hope my country won't get soon into EU...

haris said:

I have sallary of 400EURO per month and 150EURO as war veteran/invalid. But, espresso here costs 0,5 EURO and up to 1,5 EURO in snobish posh places. When see your sallary/prices ratio Arigram, I can only hope my country won't get soon into EU...

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Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

(btw, the coffee costs 2.50, it was a misprint. It can rise up to 3.50 in some parts)

Reply From ILFORD Photo / Price Increases

Dear All,

Sorry for the delay in replying, I have been out the office for a few days:

Well firstly lets knock the 'nearly double' price increases on the head, the average increases worldwide across the full product ranges are between
5.00% and 6.00%.

Within the product ranges we have had some higher percentage increases on certain products to reflect the actual ( higher ) cost of manufacture of those items, the alternative I need not tell you is to no longer manufacture those products, that would be against our strategy of supplying the widest range of monochrome products in the World ( and to introduce new ones ). The current SKU's are a little over 3,000 items.

Within our pricing review certain products have had no increase or a small increase and a dozen or so products have been decreased in price.

You will see therefore prices will change, for instance smaller pack sizes ( like 10's or 25's ) will go up by more than 50 sheet or 100 sheet boxes, why.... because they cost more to make, simple as that. Sheet film has been mentioned, that is very much a raw material and wastage issue, I am sure you can imagine quality for us is everything, sheet film has a higher % wastage than 120 or 35mm, we have always taken waste as a broadly flat calculation, now with more sophisticated costing we must apply specific wastage calculation by product, hence a bigger increase for sheet film.

Why the increase ? : Much of it is raw materials, with the massive reduction Worlwide in silver based manufacture of film and paper, the individual components ( we have well over 300 suppliers ) are being increased in price
to reflect the lower volumes sold. Also, in the past we could buy raw materials in fairly small volumes as befits our size, now as one of the last full range suppliers many of our suppliers we have minimum orders that we have to purchase, only last week we had to buy a specific chemical required in paper manufacture and the minimum order equated to 2.5 years manufacturing requirement, we have to have it, so we now have to hold and pay for that stock.

I have not yet mentioned Silver ( now at a 29 year high ) this is of great concern, and since the biggest user was Photo, and now that demand has crashed why are the prices rising day by day ? ...well they are, its a fact and we buy it by the tonne, literally. The estimate we had for the silver price ( in our increases ) when we did our pricing review ( December 05 ) were much lower, so we are obviuously concerned as to the effect.

Finally our factory is powered by gas, and we use a lot, especially during coating, our gas bill has gone up a bit... EIGHTY SIX PERCENT, yes thats not a typo 86% was the increase Q4 2005 to Q1 2006, now we do expect that to reduce as we come to the warmer quarters, but cheap gas in Europe is a thing of the past, cold winter, higher demand, higher prices are affecting everyone....

Someone in the thread mentioned mentioned the price of gasoline, its one of our costs as well, and we know US gas prices are increasing but you have quite a way to go before you pay the same as us, as of today our gasoline price is $ 6.39 per US Gallon.

Yes we do have some price issues, someone mentioned multigrade filters, well you will see how we will be creative, to overcome that particular issue in the next few months.

Finally, we have completed our first years trading, we are profitable, and we will take whatever actions required to continue to be so, but as of today we have no plans* for any further increases before May 2007.

The only factor that can change that is external ( raw materials )

Thank you for purchasing ILFORD Photo products:

Simon.