Yeah - don't you hate that? I refuse the warranties as a matter of course - electronics, appliances etc - and it almost feels like I've insulted the sales associate - and his mother!!
Bob H
.........and the clerk (I'm sorry, sales associate) shoved the warranty down their throat.
Just be careful with liquidation sales. Often the prices are marked UP before they're marked down. Best to compare with other sources as bob100684 has done.
Ritz dug their own grave, but they had help. Their eventual downfall was caused by poor staff and average merchandise. They pushed crummy Quantaray lenses because the margin was better than Nikon and Canon. Even then, margin was so low they couldn't afford good help. It's a viscious cycle.
The bigger picture is, if we all price shop for the lowest price, that's what we get. Poor service. Specialty stores can't afford to keep good help at a living wage because they're getting eaten alive by the internet. Everybody says "offer better service than your competitors, to make up for your higher prices." Sorry, but that doesn't work. The customers milk you for knowledge and help, and then when it comes time to get the wallet out, they ask if you'll meet B&H's price. We can't meet B&H's because they get volume discounts from the manufacturers. If everybody continues to shop at WalMart and on the internet, that's where everybody will have to work, too.
In 1910 Henry Ford decided to pay his workers twice what his competitors were paying theirs, so that they could afford his cars. Yes, it probably raised the prices of Fords, but he had happier, better workers, and his company flourished because of it. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say "I like to shop local, as long as it doesn't cost me any more..." Sometimes doing the right thing does cost more. Shoping locally IS the RIGHT thing to do. It injects money into your local and State economy, and that helps everyone, including you.
... More like a high cost, low service. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but I don't think so.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say "I like to shop local, as long as it doesn't cost me any more..." Sometimes doing the right thing does cost more. Shoping locally IS the RIGHT thing to do. It injects money into your local and State economy, and that helps everyone, including you.
What, for having bagged chemicals and enlargers? Hardly "hazardous" in the form they are distributed. MAYBE, I could see them having a problem with liquid chemicals.
I'm a former photographic retail manager and the Sales Director of the group of ten camera shops I worked for told one of my staff who was an excellent and knowledgeable saleslady that she was spending too much time with the customers, and that if she couldn't sell a camera in fifteen or twenty minutes she was no good to him !, she was a very good and reliable employee who had worked for me for about five years and was very upset by his remarks, she found another job and left the company shortly afterwards although I asked her to stay to no avail, she told me her husband had insisted that she left, and I can't say I blame him.It's a sign of the times. The competition is extreme and if you're going to compete on price then customers can only get what they pay for. The reality is that the majority of the staff simply aren't paid enough to give a damn. If you're competing with say CVS at 20 cents a print you have a problem with quality. The chains, for example, don't, (or didn't) have to purchase paper and chemistry - they paid Kodak by the print. They don't have to pay for maintenance of the processors - they buy enough to get that free. It's like the Nikon FM10 - made to a price - not a quality level. So the downward spiral goes. Cheap[er staff, cut maintenance corners etc.
I had a small camera store and studio until a few years ago. You couldn't compete on equipment sales. You'd spend hours with people discussing the right camera etc with them - then they'd come back with the camera you recommended from Best Buy or whatever and ask you to show them how to use it! Plus the box stores would sell this stuff for less than it cost me to buy it. The $100 more that a camera cost from me was the entire gross margin - which on a $1,200 piece of equipment ain't a lot!
CVS would send people in to me to get jammed film out of their cameras. Then they'd take the film back to CVS for the processing.
My niche became B&W film and paper. I worked with all the school kids who would come in for supplies. Evaluate their technique etc. I'd even go to schools and repair and align their enlargers. Then the local Wally World decided to stock Tri-X and 5x7 paper at prices about 10% below my cost! Didn't stop people coming in for help and advice - stopped 'em buying from me though!
One summer my son worked in the photo dept. at Best Buy - he was written up for spending too much time with customers! Apparently his job was not to help customers - it was to sell them stuff!!
"It's "brave new world" out there and and seven days a week of 12 hour days fighting a losing battle just wasn't worth it. Guess what? I'm a part time commercial photographer now!
You guys just had to get me going! Didn't you?
Penn Camera went belly up in January, so Ritz is the second local one to go.
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