This thread is of course about Kodak, but if we keep the diversion (very) short - my guess is no, that's not it. Fuji has a bit of a peculiar way of pricing things and they very strongly favor their distributors over direct channels this way. They may also reason that the hassle of dealing with these small-scale sales is just relatively expensive, resulting in a weirdly high price. Keep in mind that for Fuji, this product is a tiny little niche and should probably be seen more as a courtesy to the few photographers still using these products than something they seriously pursue. Which they clearly don't, as evidenced by the very spotty availability.
Kodak Warning + Later Clarification
-
- Thread starter pbromaghin
- Start date
Recent Classifieds
-
For Sale 2 11x14 contact printing frames
- Started by 2Dogs
-
For Sale 8x10 acros
- Started by Gram Nylén
-
For Sale Fuij GA-645Zi - Gorgeous
- Started by chuckroast
-
For Sale FS: NIKKOR Z 28mm f/2.8 S lens
- Started by pascalkea
-
For Sale FS: Schneider-Kreuznach 80mm F/2.8 Xenotar w/ Copal Shutter
- Started by pascalkea
Forum statistics
Looking at the “sold by” on a number of items in the FujiFilm store, they are all sold by authorized retailers. This is same as other non-photo Amazon stores I’ve used. These stores appear to be a marketing overlay, or consolidation of manufacturer information with pointers to retailers. Nonetheless, they are quite useful.
And staying on topic... the same seems true of the Kodak Store. There are products with Kodak logo but digging deeper shows them to be a private company producing/selling stuff under Kodak License.
And staying on topic... the same seems true of the Kodak Store. There are products with Kodak logo but digging deeper shows them to be a private company producing/selling stuff under Kodak License.
Last edited:
Something similar is going on with Provia (120 size) in the EU, it is quite often available from Amazon at a high price (right now it is available from amazon.it @ €96 a box of 5, seller is "Fujifilm Store"). Regular online photo-retailers charge around €60/box ... but they almost never have stock (perhaps a dozen boxes once a year)!
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2011
- Messages
- 14,080
- Format
- 8x10 Format
Most of Amazon's listings are actually by independent dealers who merely subscribe to their billing service. It's a major source of income to Amazon, and they make it transparent when something is being shipped from Amazon themselves or an independent party. The latter category are far more statistically likely to advertise things they neither have in stock nor can even get; but they show unrealistically low prices of such products just to lure customers into what they do have to sell. Counterfeit goods are a gamble either ways. Amazon does a poor job monitoring counterfeits.
There's a massive Amazon distribution center just 15 min away from me. A railroad track, stream, and row of trees separate it from a large shoreline park where I often go walking. One wouldn't even be aware of all that hustle and bustle unless they had driven right past it to get to the park. There are even endangered endemic species living right across that fence, like the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse. Other than occasional train whistles, it's a quiet spot where one can relax hearing the lapping of the waves. Nice shots too.
There's a massive Amazon distribution center just 15 min away from me. A railroad track, stream, and row of trees separate it from a large shoreline park where I often go walking. One wouldn't even be aware of all that hustle and bustle unless they had driven right past it to get to the park. There are even endangered endemic species living right across that fence, like the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse. Other than occasional train whistles, it's a quiet spot where one can relax hearing the lapping of the waves. Nice shots too.
My understanding is that the Fujifilm store operated on Amazon is directly operated by Fujifilm, with distribution by Amazon.
You can often buy cheaper through a reseller, but with less availability.
Amazon is not good for anything perishable!!!
Not everything they sell comes from their warehouses and/or are delivered by their fulfillment systems. They are a marketplace. Some vendors use Amazon as a go-to-market channel to mediate the search-add to cart-buy process but fulfill orders directly themselves.
Yes, Kodak probably doesn't need Alaris - but your three-person company example proves they still need distributors. Someone has to win those wholesale bids and handle actual distribution.
I run a modest WHOLESALE platform facilitating ~$250M in sales annually. Sales reps drive the vast majority of transactions (and even more by value), while direct-to-retailer sales are consistently lower volume and less frequent.
As far as I can tell, B2B remains broadly relationship-driven to varying degrees by industry, where various middlemen provide actual value in getting product distributed. It's changed remarkably little in the decade I've been operating in this space.
Perhaps I'm just out of touch. If you have some personal experience or industry-specific insight I'd love to chat, because in the markets where our manufacturers and vendors operate, this doesn't appear to be the case at all.
In Ireland, a very small market but very competitive, I remember the 1990s when it was free film from the large wholesale lab versus the minilabs, some of which offered free film.
Then the local Fuji & Kodak distributor decided to offer a 35mm 24 exp film at a very reduced cost. The idea was that it was not a free film offer but a branded film at a discount. Fuji offered a previous generation film, unboxed, just in the white canister. Kodak offered Kodacolor VR, boxed or unboxed.
It caused a minor wholesale film price war. Suddenly, there was Polaroid 35mm film (Agfa/Ferrania/Konica) Perutz (Agfa) Tura (Agfa) Tudor (Fuji), and a few more that I can't remember, all at ridiculously low wholesale prices to photoshops and minilabs.
Then the largest wholesale lab bought over the Irish Kodak distribution and replaced its Agfa paper for prints with Kodak paper, and of course the free film also went from own brand Agfa to branded Kodak VR. At one stage during the Agfa to Kodak transition, the Kodak VR was offered as a premium product at an extra price, above the free own branded film.(Agfa)
Then the local Fuji & Kodak distributor decided to offer a 35mm 24 exp film at a very reduced cost. The idea was that it was not a free film offer but a branded film at a discount. Fuji offered a previous generation film, unboxed, just in the white canister. Kodak offered Kodacolor VR, boxed or unboxed.
It caused a minor wholesale film price war. Suddenly, there was Polaroid 35mm film (Agfa/Ferrania/Konica) Perutz (Agfa) Tura (Agfa) Tudor (Fuji), and a few more that I can't remember, all at ridiculously low wholesale prices to photoshops and minilabs.
Then the largest wholesale lab bought over the Irish Kodak distribution and replaced its Agfa paper for prints with Kodak paper, and of course the free film also went from own brand Agfa to branded Kodak VR. At one stage during the Agfa to Kodak transition, the Kodak VR was offered as a premium product at an extra price, above the free own branded film.(Agfa)
Go look at companies like Fastenal, McMaster-Carr, Zoro, and Uline. All of them are B2B. So far as I know, all of them emphasize online self-service. They do have customer support people to help resolve issues, but I don't think any of them have a significant sales for or multi-tier operating model. They sell industrial good straight to the customer who mostly self-services.
Exactly, to paraphrase their commercials over half of what they sell comes from other vendors. These yahoos don't have warranties, no exchange policies etc. I use Amazon only in a pinch.
Your examples are both retailers with B2C-oriented websites, and B2B distributors. They stock products from hundreds of vendors/manufacturers, all acquired through (you guessed it) distributors, but I assume also directly from manufacturers.
If you want to buy a few containers of a single product, you'll end up on a call with a sales rep. And they'll need a little more than a credit card and shipping address. You'd probably also expect a bit more than a tracking number.
I bought a used car in California and had it shipped to Seattle a few months back. I found it online. When it was all said and done I'd interacted with about six people doing different things to make it all happen, and about 20 documents for various organisations. One car. One transaction. Cars are not the only well-regulated commodity.
The reality is that manufacturing companies like Kodak need sales and distribution networks, some of which use online marketplaces, but most of the trade going on is negotiated by people figuring out the details amongst themselves in their neck of the woods.
"Add to cart" doesn't make the mess of the real world go away.
At least one of them operates direct to business with no inventory and thousands of suppliers feeding them via drop ship. This is the future.
More and more companies are working like this: Treat business customers as consumers and deal with them directly.
Everything is being outsourced to specialists: Cart management, taxation, logistics, warehousing, etc. The do it all yourself days are coming to and end, and so is the role of the middleman for all but the biggest or more complex product sales. Film is complicated to make, there is nothing complicated about its distribution.
Last edited:
I feel like I'm living in a different world. I buy Amazon all the time and everything has an exchange policy. Perhaps the products I buy just happen to line up with products sold directly by Amazon (they usually do come in Amazon boxes) but I am pretty sure I have returned products that didn't come in Amazon boxes. There was even one time recently where I went to return a product that, if I recall correctly, did not come in an Amazon box. After asking for a return, I got an instant reply saying that my money was refunded but to just keep the product. Presumably it wasn't worth the hassle to sort through the returns.
That sounds incredibly and needlessly convoluted. I can go to CarMax.com and buy a car online and I bet I wouldn't interact with six people. I did not interact with six people when I bought a new car at a dealership. I think I interacted with 4 people, if we include the greeter at the door who pointed me to where the sales people were. I don't know whether you're counting 5 second interactions in your list of people you interacted with.
I should be able to go to ford.com and buy a car right there. Then choose "deliver to my home" or "pickup at a nearby dealership".
MattKing
Moderator
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2015
- Messages
- 6,759
- Format
- 35mm
The middle man adds nothing to the world except paper work. Ford should have Ford dealerships run by Ford employees with Ford mechanics. I buy your car and want your people working on it. Dealerships play games, as soon as they see you're not an easy mark you're worthless to them.
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2011
- Messages
- 14,080
- Format
- 8x10 Format
I don't know how much more I should chime in. I've been in the trenches of distribution as both a buyer and seller. Believe it or not, manufacturers actually need to make money, and don't have much patience with what they refer to as "nuisance business". They do listen when the purchase orders run into hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions a year. The company I worked for had enough clout to mainly buy direct from manufacturers. And we got deeper discounts than internet or mail-order companies because we had actual in-depth inventory on hand. When the conversation came up about getting into internet business ourselves, there was a consensus it would have been counterproductive; more fuss than it was worth. We'd already seen competitors go down the drain due to that.
Companies like McMaster Carr operate on a much different basis because they charge everyone a price substantially higher than retail; they also charge a lot for shipping. They're a convenience model with a huge selection, and have a distinct niche, which is a little different from Grainger, which has many pick-up locations, and more an emphasis on motors, AC, etc.
Auto parts are yet another category - obscene markups. I've interacted with many dealers, selling them this or that equipment; and some of them have told me outright that they make all their money on service and parts, and basically nothing on the cars themselves. Most had dishonest service depts too - and that's not just a stereotype! Oh, the stories I could tell !
The point is, it's easy to be an armchair quarterback when you're not in the same shoes as a mfg like Kodak, juggling a limited budget at the same time as upgrading your own facility and training new people too, and when all kinds of necessary supplies are increasing in price. We should wish them well. It's a tightrope act. Most manufacturers in the best of circumstances are doing good if they make a bottom line 4% profit (after all expenses, payroll, taxes, share distributions, overhead, etc).
Companies like McMaster Carr operate on a much different basis because they charge everyone a price substantially higher than retail; they also charge a lot for shipping. They're a convenience model with a huge selection, and have a distinct niche, which is a little different from Grainger, which has many pick-up locations, and more an emphasis on motors, AC, etc.
Auto parts are yet another category - obscene markups. I've interacted with many dealers, selling them this or that equipment; and some of them have told me outright that they make all their money on service and parts, and basically nothing on the cars themselves. Most had dishonest service depts too - and that's not just a stereotype! Oh, the stories I could tell !
The point is, it's easy to be an armchair quarterback when you're not in the same shoes as a mfg like Kodak, juggling a limited budget at the same time as upgrading your own facility and training new people too, and when all kinds of necessary supplies are increasing in price. We should wish them well. It's a tightrope act. Most manufacturers in the best of circumstances are doing good if they make a bottom line 4% profit (after all expenses, payroll, taxes, share distributions, overhead, etc).
Last edited:
God I wish more companies were as reliable as easy to order from as McMaster.
Dealerships are somewhat protected by some state laws. Believe me Ford and the rest would love to get rid of at least half of their dealerships. The individual dealer creates competition even within the brand, that's a good thing for the consumer.
Of course there's the B&H model, I love B&H, partly why I have no good local shops.
That sounds a bit like saying that we should still have switchboard operators so more people can have jobs.
Note that I am writing from a US-centric point of view because that is where I currently reside. Here, dealerships exist in no small part because they are mandated by law. As @Cholentpot said, a middle man doesn't inherently add value. If I am wrong, and they do add value, that value should not be threatened by my ability to order a car directly from Ford. If the only way they can exist is by extracting rent from a product they did not make, and the manufacturer is not allowed to sell directly, then they should not exist.
I expect that if that particular drain on the economy went away, there would still be qualified mechanics who will gladly take my money to service my car.
You just described Tesla's service model
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2011
- Messages
- 14,080
- Format
- 8x10 Format
Switchboard operators are great. We didn't even have phones until I was a teenager. The switchboard operator was clear across the canyon in a different County; and it was all party lines anyway. If anyone needed to know anything about anyone, the switchboard operator was the one to ask. If the school Principal's wife suspected him of having an affair with his Secretary, she'd know about it before he even got home (true story). Far more reliable intelligence than internet AI.
How sure are you about that?
| Photrio.com contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. To read our full affiliate disclosure statement please click Here. |
PHOTRIO PARTNERS EQUALLY FUNDING OUR COMMUNITY:  |