Kodak HIE - Time to re-think your decision Kodak!

Only kidding - I think. However I have just seen in the clearance section of 7dayshop a roll of HIE for £17.99 - That's one roll only mind! Only a week or so ago it was just under £11.00. I was even thinking of buying one, just to get the experience of it, never having used it.

Not now - not ever at that price. When it was a regular stock item it was about £7.50 and probably expensive at that.

Clearly 7dayshop have judged the marketplace as supporting £17.99 a roll. Well it has misjudged things in my case and I suspect a lot other cases as well. If I am right watch out for large decreases in price as it faces being left with stock that has a limited use by date.

Just academic curiosity but I wonder what price Kodak would have needed to keep HIE profitable - less than £18.00(say $34) a roll I suspect.

What, if any comparable price hikes have you U.S. APUGers seen?

No doubt 7dayshop would argue that rationing on price is as good a way of ensuring that only those most in need get the product. It might be right and it does have the other beneficial effect of providing an effective "cold turkey " cure to those of us who need to be spared any mourning for HIE's passing.

I have managed to wipe away my tears already

pentaxuser

This is odd because Seven Day Shop usually sells discontinued items at a discount rather than a premium.


Steve.

Hi Steve. I am a little surprised this thread hasn't brought more comments but so be it. I checked again and I suppose you could argue it has been discounted. It is listed at £24.99 discounted to £17.99! I can't recall seeing it ever listed at £24.99 but I suppose it must have been or 7Dayshop couldn't claim it has been discounted. It struck me the discount was a bit like a furniture store which shall be nameless which is always discounting to half price or even a third of the price and yet it's furniture products still make it a profit and seem to be at the market rate!

I sell Monet paintings normally at £100 million but usually discount to silly prices at under two figure millions. I can't help it, it's just my natural generosity.

Maybe 7dayshop has seen the furore on APUG and thinks there are enough people willing to buy 4 rolls for a £100 but as a gesture it will let them have five and a half rolls for £100.

"Good luck to them squire" as they might say in "Larkrise to Candlewick"

pentaxuser

That's nothing; Adorama is selling Polaroid Type 55 for $109 a box. I did a quick and dirty calc for the breakeven retail price for a single roll of HIE and I think it exceeds $250.00 per roll.

Regards, Art.

Who knew that film would become a better investment than stock in Bear Stearns?

I wrote a review of it for them, which they have declined to publish; presumably because it wasn't too complimentary of their sharp and disreputable practice. I note that they have altered the "original" price to £17.99 from the original claimed £24.99. Bunch of charlatans if you ask me.
For it to be an investment David; they have to sell it first, otherwise it remains a liability.
Just a thought, I wonder if 7dayshop is part of Jessops?

Actually, I've been watching the price, and I don't recall ever seeing it at £24.99. Until a few days ago the normal price was 12.99, with a "Special Price" £5 higher at £17.99. They then altered the normal price to £24.99. I certainly won't buy at that price, and until they lower it, have decided to buy all my film elsewhere, even if I have to pay a bit more. I, too, suspect sharp practice.

Just FYI, about 10 - 15 years ago, Lionel, American Flyer and Ives model trains were considered among the best investments of any, provided the models were made before 1950. Models bought for about $2 in the 40s or 50s were selling for as much as $250. Greenberg's listing is still showing a heavy profit so maybe film and cameras are the thing of the future. IDK.

PE

You could be right PE, but I suspect a model train has a better shelf life than HIE.

I have bought very little from 7dayshop and don't profess to be a close observer of it. A few Fuji colour films has been about the lot. To be fair this is the first time I have seen such blatant and open profiteering. It's difficult to work out whether this would be normal practice shoud it have a monopoly position on all things or simply represents an aberration of otherwise honourable behaviour. However my observation is that its business is driven by a "stack them high sell them cheap" strategy rather than a service to analogue photographers. Apart from film and some accessories common to both analogue and digi it seems to offer very little else. It is never going to offer hard to get, slow to sell stuff.

If it sees its relationship with customers as a simple "price tart" one with no loyality on either side then we maybe should have expected its price approach to the end of HIE to have happened sooner.

I think it could be a costly strategy for it. It has certainly affected my view of it and I suspect others. Yes it will sell some HIE even at these prices but it could cost it more than it will gain.

If I were someone called Simon whose company philosophy is at the opposite end of the spectrum from this, I would have an even warmer feeling about the future of my IR product.

pentaxuser

David A. Goldfarb said:

Who knew that film would become a better investment than stock in Bear Stearns?

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm in a delima now: Do I use my $600 Stimulus check to buy film or do I invest it, along with alot of my other tax $$$, in BS (ahh, Bear Stearns)?

Where is Jim Cramer when I need him?

Best,

Bob

Yep, I can confirm that 7DayShop never listed HIE at anything like $24.99 -- at least not that I noticed. I bought some from them recently at £11.99 per roll which was listed as being discounted from £12.99 and they ususally offer better prices than most others who were all cheaper than that when they still had it in stock. Beware anyone outside the UK because it's not VAT free once it goes over £18. Come to think of it, that's obviously why they settled on £17.99...

I tried hard to get some from the US but the one or two people I could find with any left in stock would not ship it. I tried hard because almost all film seems to be half the price in the US than in the UK (general observation to which I know there will be exceptions).

Don't know what made me think of HIE but I've just looked at 7dayshop and it's now £17.99 discounted to £17.49. Only a 50p drop which is neither here not there if you are paying nearly £18 but that's 50p in the space of a few weeks. Might take a couple of months but watch this space.

pentaxuser

As it happens I bought 10 rolls of HIE (dated 9/2008) from 7dayshop about 3 weeks ago. I can't remember the exact price but it was certainly considerably less than £10 a roll... possibly £7.99? Evidently there's been a bit of a run on it but at that time they claimed to have 'plenty' in stock.

David A. Goldfarb said:

Who knew that film would become a better investment than stock in Bear Stearns?

Click to expand...

i have my investment in IR film now.....just hanging on till the market really gets crazy! then i will sell! 2009 date so i will hold on another 7 months and see how it goes then.

eddie

Silverprint have it for about a tenner - http://www.silverprint.co.uk/bwf6.html. (also IR820C, yeah i know its just not the same, but I still like it), but thats scandalous from 7DS.

Ade-oh said:

As it happens I bought 10 rolls of HIE (dated 9/2008) from 7dayshop about 3 weeks ago. I can't remember the exact price but it was certainly considerably less than £10 a roll... possibly £7.99? Evidently there's been a bit of a run on it but at that time they claimed to have 'plenty' in stock.

Click to expand...

Well it's just over 3 weeks ago that I made the original post and it was £17.99then hence the reason for the thread. If you are right about your date of about or just over 3 weeks ago and your price of possibly £7.99 per roll it suggests that suddenly someone at 7dayshop decided that an increase of about £10 per roll was right.

Well I don't think it was right. I recall the petrol shortage of late 1973 after the Yom Kippur war when the mentality that petrol might stop flowing the next day gave certain petrol stations the green light to charge whatever they thought the panicky market might bear.

Those stations took a long time to recover from their "quick buck" profits mentality and quite rightly so. It sounds as if other retailers such as Silverprint are pitching prices more realistically.

Anyone feeding the 7Dayshop mentality on HIE is simply encouraging such increases. I always recall the comic encounter between Elliot Gould and Telly Savalas in the film "Capricorn One" Gould needs to get back to civilisation with an exclusive news scoop and Savalas with his crop duster plane is his only hope, He asks Savalas what the charge is and Savalas says " $100 an hour." Gould immediately agrees and Savalas says: It's £150 an hour now. You agreed to $100 too quickly"

About sums it up

pentaxuser