I sometimes get emails from my clients asking if so and so price is a good deal from a certain retailer. They are usually hundreds of dollars less than average selling price of these cameras or lenses.
Remember the old saying? If it is too good to be true….
This is the case with most camera dealers that offer very low prices.
This article sums up the situation very well. What happens is they sell you cameras with no accessories included (that is supposed to come standard), gray market cameras with no warranty etc. They also contact you to force you to buy very overpriced accessories and if you don’t buy, suddenly your camera is not in stock. And they sometimes send you a lesser model and make it extremely hard to return items if they are still in business.
What can you do? First try your local stores. This will give you a person to talk to and make sure you have a camera in hand when you walk out (instead of hoping it arrives through mail). Second, it supports the local economy and brings 80% of the money back to local businesses. And if something breaks, you have somebody to go and talk to instead of being on the phone for hours. Trust me, that alone is worth the price difference most of the time. We are all very busy!
In Portland area, I recommend Pro Photo Supply. They know what they are doing and since they do not work on commission, they are very helpful. I do not like shopping at Camera World as I had some very bad experiences there.
If you are buying online, make sure to look at:
and to a lesser degree
Here are some (online) stores I recommend:
B&H – Gold standard of online camera stores.
KEH – they also have great used camera selection
I used to shop at Adorama but they have failed me couple times and would not buy from them again. For me, reliability is very important. And do me a favor and do not spend your money on Walmart and support your small businesses!
I hope this was useful to some of you.
I agree! I spent A LOT of time looking at the Nikon D50 online. Ebay, comparing prices at mysimon.com, tons of retailers out there with the camera 100-200 dollars under the price at our local stores.
But what it DID come down to is the customer service. Brian at Kits Camera spent an hour with us talking camera’s without ever knowing if we were truly coming back to buy the D50 from him. But I did, even though it was about 100.00 more than online. But on the other hand, it comes with their classes, which are fantastic for beginners (like me) and people who are willing to take the time out to talk to you about your camera and your needs. And, of course, like you said, if something goes wrong, a real person to talk to. Not a machine that basically says “to reach someone who cares, press….”.
I thought of a question today, do you happen to know where a good place is to sell a camera? I’ve got a Nikon N80, just the body. It’s in perfect shape. Ebay charges an arm and a leg just to post and sell there and I’ve gotten one response from Craigs list, but I’m not sure that person is going to follow through. I also tried Adorama, but never got a reply back.