JimmyTB

You're correct about being liable for sales tax in your state no matter what state it came from. I believe though that B and H pays the sales tax due to your state on your behalf if you use their credit card. Maybe HenryP, the B and H person on this site can confirm or correct me if I'm wrong.

henryp Loc: New York, NY

You're referring to our Payboo program. More on that at https://www.bhphotovideo.com/credit-cards
In a nutshell, you pay us, we pay the sales tax and reimburse you, instantly. Your net payment is the price of the items and any s&h fee.

henryp Loc: New York, NY

Thank you. Very gratifying.

JBRIII

Same here. Last real one I was in was in Denver while skiing years ago.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Many manufacturers set the minimum price points as part of their dealer agreements so there are typically very few price differences from one seller to another. Some less than honest sellers break up the packages and sell the camera separate from the battery, charger, etc. so that it gives the illusion that they are selling for less. I avoid those bait-and-switch dealers.

IF...you can still find a source that does not charge sales tax then there is a price advantage however those may only offer non-America warranties which may...or may not...be important to the buyer.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

I will say one of the best stores I know of is B&H, and I do use them, and appreciate them. I will do my best to buy from the local stores. Two reasons, one I like to see, feel and handle my equipment before I have to use it, and two is I want to support them so they don't go out of business. PS they are a 2 hour drive.

Dalek Loc: Detroit, Miami, Goffstown

I also like ProCam in Livonia. Woodward Camera is OK. If you ever get to Orlando FL, go to Colonial Photo great stock.
In Miami we have Pitman Photo - good place.

Bill Emmett Loc: Bow, New Hampshire

I'm still a user of B&H, and Adorama, and other internet stores. When I lived in Louisiana, I did everything possible to avoid New Orleans Parish sales tax, of 11%. So, after retirement, my wife and I moved to New Hampshire. The Live Free, or Die State. No sales, no income tax, we saved a wad of money after that move. NH does have a small tax on prepared food, collected on your restaurant bills. NH also has a small tax on dividends. Real-estate taxes are governed by the local town governments. There is no Homestead Exemption, so you're taxed at 100% of appraised value. Now, the real savings, low property insurance rates, minimum flood insurance costs, and very low auto insurance rates. There is lots of room in NH, if you want to move here.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I patronize the same brick and mortar store I have since the late 70s. If they don't have something I need in stock at the moment, then I'll order it through B and H.
--Bob

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

Depends on your state tax laws. In MO, use tax (the sales tax analog applicable to out-of-state purchases) applies to businesses on anything they buy, but for personal purchases it only applies to things that get registered with the state - cars, boats, etc.

ClarkJohnson Loc: Fort Myers, FL and Cohasset, MA

Our «local store » in the Boston area is Hunt’s, which is a mini-chain of five locations. They have decided to compete with the big NYC stores by aggressively going after national sales with educational webinars and tie-ins with camera clubs. While the closest store is only about 30 minutes away, I do most of my shopping online with their dedicated « outside sales » rep. At least it keeps the dollars local.

Stephan G

A non-sequitur, all of the pop-up ads on this page are in Polish! (Fortunately, even being rusty, I still can read and understand Polish.)

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Back in the 1960s through early 1980s, anyway, you could get really low prices from the companies advertising in the backs of photo magazines. Some local dealers would price match, but others would sneer at you.

That was back when most good-sized towns had real camera stores! There were two in Greenville, SC, where I spent my teen years. I dealt with Simpson's, because they would come close to NYC prices but also taught me a LOT about how to use what I bought there.

Alas, the camera store market started to dry up around the turn of the century, with the rapidly growing popularity of scanners, digital cameras, photo sharing websites, and social media. The pace of camera store extinction REALLY quickened around 2007 when the iPhone was introduced. By 2011, PMAI, the Photo Marketing Association International, was in a panic. We used to have 50,000 people at an annual convention and trade show. It was gone/merged with CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, by 2015.

Now, however, in the age of de facto price fixing, if you have a local camera store, there is little point to "mail order," unless:

> You want a bundle of add ons, usually of dubious quality and utility

> You want to avoid paying the local sales tax (the dealer takes the "tax hit" but still charges "retail price")

> You live in an area where the nearest camera store is too far to drive

> You want something that only the big superstores carry

"Mail Order" as such doesn't really make sense as as term. It's more like "Internet Order," now. Precious few people bother placing snail mail orders. Heck, we didn't in the '60s. We got on the phone and called!

One thing is still the same, though. Caveat Emptor (Latin for "buyer beware.") There are reputable, honest dealers, and there are bait-and-switch scumbags.

Those local camera stores that you could shop at with no disadvantage are mostly gone. There isn't a local camera store within 75 miles of my house. The two that are about that far away are pitiful, compared to what we used to have. There just isn't sufficient volume to support them in most areas.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

I suspect that the camera stores that survive have a commercial business run out of back rooms that walk in customers never see. I was a customer of Jefferson Camera in St. Louis, as was my father (who started with 'em in the 1930s when the founders left the large camera store they worked at and started their own place.) It was where you went in St. Louis for Leica equipment. I stayed with 'em pretty much until the grandchildren of the founders closed the place in the 1990s (I think it was.) The public showroom wasn't over 1,000 sq ft, but at one point I learned that the store supplied the Xray film for the Catholic hospital system in town. That went in and out of the back storerooms (or may just have been drop shipped from Kodak, even though Kodak wouldn't sell direct to customers) without any of the retail customers seeing it.

The last real camera store in St. Louis is now Schiller's, which has been in the business for over 100 years. They still have film in a cooler, but there's only one and it's in a back room, no longer four in the retail space, which is now filled with digital cameras and a wide range of other equipment. (It's the only place I can play with a gimbal mount, for example, or some small to mid size ball heads.) But a friend who worked there said 80-90% of their business was commercial stuff run out of back rooms with traveling salesmen. At one point they got a contract for classroom A/V equipment for the full University of Missouri system, for example.

I suspect this is true of most if not all of the remaining camera stores. Retail camera sales just aren't enough to keep a photo-only business going these days.