GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Not that I'm looking to purchase at this time but it seems strange about where to buy.

Lots of stores are factory approved to sell their product yet the factories also sell everything directly. Why?

How come they don't demand that you have to go through a "brick and motor" store to get their product? In a sense, this is a major reason many stores are having a hard time staying afloat.

Just thinking!

gmw12 Loc: Indianapolis & Windsor/UK & Montreux/Switzerl

My closest brick and mortar photo store is an hour drive away. As long as it exists. The brands need to make their product available to anybody. On the other hand they sell at higher prices than the shops to protect their retailer network. It's up to you where you buy...

DavidPhares Loc: Chandler, Arizona

I have had the same bad experience twice, with two on-line dealers recently. I was looking to buy a new Canon SX60 camera.

Everyday I checked the prices on-line. I knew my local store, and the big box places were selling the camera for around $445, and Canon USA had a refurb unit for $369. Twice I found good prices with two different on-line dealers. When I called and talked to a "Customer Sevice" person each time I was assured the camera was a "Canon USA" unit, complete, and with a "Canon USA Warranty" and I was advised to buy from their website.

On both websites, there was only the Canon description if the camera, there was nothing about what came in the box, warranty, etc. BEWARE!

Twice, when I called back on shipping matters, and talked to a different person, I was told it was not a "Canon USA" camera, it was not complete (no battery, no charger, etc.) and a third party warranty was available at extra cost!

Finally, at the second dealer, when I called them on the inaccurate information I was given the first call, and threatened to cancel the order, they agreed to send me the complete Canon USA camera at the original price quoted.

Lessons learned: (1) if you are going to buy on-line, call them first, TWICE, talk to two different people and make sure you are getting all you want for the price you want to pay, and (2) from now on, since my local camera store is only minutes away, I will just pay the higher price after a lengthy discussion with the nice people who work there!

I realize not all folks live close to a bricks and mortar store, so they just about have to buy in line, but beware when you do.

CA_CanonUser Loc: Friendswood, TX

Not sure what on-line stores you were contacting, but I have bought many times from Adorama and B&H Photo and have never had an issue. They are both very reputable on-line stores.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

While I generally abhor price-fixing, it seems to me that forcing all authorized dealers to sell at the factory-recommended prices is actually the only thing keeping the brick-and-mortar stores afloat. Otherwise the online stores would undercut them tremendously. As it is now the online dealers offer a ton of free stuff like cases, tripods, polarizers, etc. A lot of it of questionable value, but it does allow the online dealers with lower overhead costs to aggressively compete with the brick and mortar stores. Most of us know the value of keeping real stores afloat, so I but from my local store whenever I can - and it is usually the big stuff, like Canon lenses, which I generally cannot get cheaper anywhere else.

henryp Loc: New York, NY

Thank you. Kind of you to say so.



Allowing smaller mom-n-pop retailers to compete with the "big guys" has been the justification for MAP pricing for 20 years or more. The argument is if a customer looks at two magazine ads (or more recently two web sites) and sees the same price the customer may well order from the smaller mom-n-pop retailer, even though the "big guys" may have a lower selling price available for the asking.

"Forcing all authorized dealers to sell at the factory-recommended prices" is a more recent phenomenon called "unilateral pricing," made legal by the Supreme Court's misguided Leegin decision. That allows an authorized distributor to force all authorized retailers to conform to the same lowest selling price, even if the "big guys" were otherwise willing to sell at a lower price.

There are (and have long been) retailers who include valueless "packages" of accessories, but with the advent of "unilateral pricing," legit retailers have been adding accessories that are useful and valuable to many as the only way to distinguish one from another when we're all forced to offer the same (sometimes inflated) prices, at the expense of the customer.

It's my PERSONAL opinion that distributors see a shrinking pool of retailers and fear a few of the "big guys" could force the distributors to do their bidding. Those distributors want to be the dog in the perennial dog-vs-tail argument and see "unilateral pricing" as one way to strengthen smaller retailers so the "big guys" don't dominate. YMMY