Another store bites the dust: It was announced earlier this week, a local St. Louis favorite camera store, Creve Coeur Camera is closing after 40 years in the area. This leaves one...

Diamond41 Loc: St. Louis, MO

It was announced earlier this week, a local St. Louis favorite camera store, Creve Coeur Camera is closing after 40 years in the area. This leaves one camera store in St. Louis, Schillers. The area had several stores over the years, St Louis Photo, City Photo Stockhouse to name a couple. Now only one, this is a blow.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Diamond41 wrote:

It was announced earlier this week, a local St. Louis favorite camera store, Creve Coeur Camera is closing after 40 years in the area. This leaves one camera store in St. Louis, Schillers. The area had several stores over the years, St Louis Photo, City Photo Stockhouse to name a couple. Now only one, this is a blow.

Been there a few times.
As far as I know, we’re down to one here in the KC area. Topeka has Wolfe’s, a great one, but about an hour away.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

My nearest one is Houston Camera exchange. Apx. two hours away. I'm hoping they are doing well.

dick ranez

Unfortunately that is the view of the future. We’ve lost two major camera stores in southern california - calumet and cal’s camera - big enough stores that had loyal followers as well as at least a half dozen mom and pops. As long as amazon and several mega stores do mail order with good return policies, I wouldn’t hold out much hope. Maybe the major vendors will have to emulate apple and open their own stores - demonstration centers.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Diamond41 wrote:

It was announced earlier this week, a local St. Louis favorite camera store, Creve Coeur Camera is closing after 40 years in the area. This leaves one camera store in St. Louis, Schillers. The area had several stores over the years, St Louis Photo, City Photo Stockhouse to name a couple. Now only one, this is a blow.

It may have been a great store but it probably wasn't as much of a favorite as you think or it wouldn't have gone out of business. Its likely it couldn't compete on price with the big box stores and the internet. Consumers voted for their favorite place to buy camera gear with their dollars and Creve Coeur didn't win the contest..

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

kpmac wrote:

My nearest one is Houston Camera exchange. Apx. two hours away. I'm hoping they are doing well.

Was there a couple of weeks ago on a weekday. They were busy as usual. I try to buy from them when I can, but it is tough to beat the prices on used demo quality glass at Adorama.com. Luckily, it's only about 45 minutes from my house.

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

Fortunately, in my neck of the woods, southeast, southcentral Pennsylvania, there are still plenty of camera stores. Including Philadelphia, there are over a dozen stores that sell primarily cameras and photography equipment. Toss in a few Best Buy stores with large camera departments and the number goes up to around twenty. I guess there are still a lot of people from Philadelphia county to Lancaster county PA that like buying their photography gear from a fellow human being.
Although not in Pennsylvania, about a quarter mile south of the state line, the Best Buy in North Delaware has a really nice camera department, and no sales tax, and it's maybe a half hour drive from my home.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Diamond41 wrote:

It was announced earlier this week, a local St. Louis favorite camera store, Creve Coeur Camera is closing after 40 years in the area. This leaves one camera store in St. Louis, Schillers. The area had several stores over the years, St Louis Photo, City Photo Stockhouse to name a couple. Now only one, this is a blow.

Creve Coeur has been on a downhill slide for a good number of years, the last time I was here was just over a year ago ( Chesterfield store) had I not known what I wanted neither of the two clerks would have been any help, It took then almost 10 mins to find the Nikon binoculars I ask for, after a phone call to another store they finally found them. However the real reason IMO, is the loss of business to the Web stores.
Frank

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

Thank distributors for stores closing. Because the big box companies (and online sales) get such big discounts they can always sell cheaper. The smaller or single location shops get a much smaller discount so they can never compete on price. Sometimes the single shop may be paying as much as a much larger competitors sell price. In fact a distributor would much prefer selling their entire stock to a single buyer rather than stuff around doing onesies and twosies to a multitude of different places. Blame your own greed for this. Nothing worse than people who always buy the cheapest no matter what as it results in the shutting down of competition quickly followed by a monopoly. I have to admit I sometimes do this myself although my online presence is more to do with shops not stocking stuff. And shops often aren't the smartest kids on the block when they stock crap or cameras that they won't sell year in year out. If they took the Hasselblad out of the window and bought more 10 x more D850s they might be much better off.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Diamond41 wrote:

It was announced earlier this week, a local St. Louis favorite camera store, Creve Coeur Camera is closing after 40 years in the area. This leaves one camera store in St. Louis, Schillers. The area had several stores over the years, St Louis Photo, City Photo Stockhouse to name a couple. Now only one, this is a blow.

Many of these stores were family run, when the adult owners get older and want to retire, no one wants to carry on the business as many look at ma and pa camera stores as past their time.

leftyD500 Loc: Ocala, Florida

Diamond41 wrote:

It was announced earlier this week, a local St. Louis favorite camera store, Creve Coeur Camera is closing after 40 years in the area. This leaves one camera store in St. Louis, Schillers. The area had several stores over the years, St Louis Photo, City Photo Stockhouse to name a couple. Now only one, this is a blow.

Consider yourself fortunate, there is not a camera store anywhere near Mansfield, OH. I always get a chuckle when someone suggests to go to your camera store and test a camera via "hands on" experience. Easier said than done!

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

jradose wrote:

Consider yourself fortunate, there is not a camera store anywhere near Mansfield, OH. I always get a chuckle when someone suggests to go to your camera store and test a camera via "hands on" experience. Easier said than done!

Campus Camera in Kent Ohio is 1 hour and 17 minutes away from you. That is a half hour closer than I am. They are a great store with a lot of knowledge. Their number is (330) 678-1297
DODD camera in Akron is just an hour away. Their number is (330) 873-1700

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

I believe YM Camera is in Youngstown. I’m betting it is retirement time for the owners and there is nobody who wants to take over the business for a number of reasons. This happens every day to all kinds of businesses. Such is life...

billnikon wrote:

Campus Camera in Kent Ohio is 1 hour and 17 minutes away from you. That is a half hour closer than I am. They are a great store with a lot of knowledge. Their number is (330) 678-1297
DODD camera in Akron is just an hour away. Their number is (330) 873-1700

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

jradose wrote:

Consider yourself fortunate, there is not a camera store anywhere near Mansfield, OH. I always get a chuckle when someone suggests to go to your camera store and test a camera via "hands on" experience. Easier said than done!

Think about it, going to the local store to check out the item your interested in. Do you then make the purchase? or go back home and order ON-Line? If the later is the case you are helping put your local store out of business!!!!

bettis1 Loc: Texas

The closing of independent camera stores is no different than the closing of many other types of privately owned stores. Think of the reduction/elimination of small gun stores, book stores, hardware stores, food stores, etc.

We all gravitate to the most convenient (quickest) way to satisfy our desires. Consequently, we all bear some responsibility for the loss of the traditional marketplace.