Supporting Your Local Store - Do You?

I bought my M8 from my local store - Wellington Photographic in Wellington, New Zealand.

I support them all the time because they have very good prices, great service and are always helpful [fully staffed by photographers].

There aren't many other places in the world that are actually better as a 'shop'.

they should be paying me commission for saying this!!
 
I have a local/professional store process all my film. Why deal with the chemicals? I find developing negatives repetitive and let them do it. I buy some recently out of date film from them & picked up a Nikon s2 (with a recent cla) at a great low price. They are very competitive on new digital if I ever needed one.
 
Here in Pensacola we have a local store thats gone digital,and Ritz.The local has some good guys who will share advice and help with small things.We can still get film and processing and they will "special order". Robin
 
We have one remaining local "real" camera shop. It's not only surviving, but thriving, having opened up a third branch a year or so ago. (http://www.rockbrookcamera.com/)

Yes, they've been selling more and more {d-word} stuff lately.

I did buy a monopod there recently. A bit higher than B&H or Adorama, but it was there and I could see what I was buying.

However (comma) ...

(rantmode)
I would give them more business, but they REFUSE to be competitive on film prices! Why should I pay 50% more than I do at Target' for the same stuff? Film is really what I buy the most of, photo stuff, that is.

But wait, there's more. A guy I know went there a couple months ago for a roll of Fuji 1600 and they told him it was discontinued!

Bovine Doodoo!

I pulled up both the Fuji and the B&H web sites for him to show him it was not, and I ended up selling him a roll for what I paid from B&H. Maybe I'm in the wrong business. :)

Lately it seems like when I go in for odds and ends, they never have it. Until recently they had a LARGE pegboard with Promaster accessories, but it's maybe 1/3 of what it was a couple years ago.

I went there for a lens hood for the Mamiya, generic type. Nope!

Then I lost the lens cap for one of the GIII, generic type. Nope!

I needed a Wein cell for the meter. Nope!

I know I had seen all of these odds and ends there within the past few years.
(/rantmode)

Oh well. So it goes ...
 
I used to try to shop locally as much as possible, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. There is no doubt that e-commerce has had a marked impact on local Mom & Pop stores -- I do not see them carry the inventories that they once had in the past. If the store has to order an item, I might as well order it myself. It becomes a downward spiral for the local retailer.

Same for film processing. The last time I dropped off some film for E-6 processing, I was shocked to find out that their prices had nearly doubled in recent months. According to the store personnel, lower lab volumes had necessitated the price increase. Consequently, I am now compelled to send out my E-6 work to another lab, thus adding another nail in the coffin of the local shop.
 
I've always felt like most of the local stores I've been around are geared more toward selling cameras to people who don't want to take the time to educate themselves about gear. I'll shop there for accessories, chemicals, etc.
(that's just a general feeling - I'm sure there are some great local stores or great reasons to shop at local stores)

But when it comes to buying new cameras or lenses, I go through one of the guys who support rangefinder photography: CameraQuest, PhotoVillage or Popflash for me.
 
When I was a pro clicker I lived in Austin, Texas and used the Co-Op (Kodachrome and bulk rolls of Tri-X), Capital Camera for used camera equipment and Precision Camera for repairs and good used bins. Now I think only Precision is still around.

I now live in Victoria - 100 miles away - and there are no shops other than Best Buy - a great source for 2GB Sandisk Ultra III cards - $19.95 last week ;>).

Almost everything else is bought here, on getdpi or Fred Miranda for my DSLR stuff.

O.C.
 
For all the standard reasons, I very much want to have a local analogue camera store around. Two preferably, for competition. My particular pet peeve with online buying: paying $5 to ship a $5 filter or other such small, cheap part. Argh! Old stores with bins full of second-hand bits and bobs are the way to go!

In sparkling "New South" Charlotte, North Carolina, where new is worshipped and history is an inconvenience, we have two old-school stores clinging to life. (A third snuffed it last year.) I try hard to give these two my business, but they do make it difficult. When I was trying to buy a TLR: nope, just sold our only one. Rangefinders? No. (My one so far is a lucky eBay buy.) Efke film? Nope. My entire purchase history across these two stores is lots of paper, some film, all my color processing, and one Mamiya TLR lens.

Next best before going online to KEH or B&H, I'll try other towns' free-range, organic, shade-grown :D stores when traveling. Ball Photo in Asheville, NC (2+ hours up the mountain) is great. A new(?) tiny place in Philadelphia, 10th Street Camera, shows promise. Last year I saw Central Camera in Chicago for the first time and nearly wept at the sight of their inventory. Tried a minty C330 there, hesitated at its size so went home without buying, got burned on a smaller Yashica 124 on eBay, and weeks later finally gave up and phone-ordered (how quaint) from Central the very C330 I had seen previously, fortunately still there. (Love it now.) That'll teach me.

BTW, at all these places, don't curse their forays into digital. If their sales of digital to the masses in effect subsidizes the slow-selling vintage gear they stock and services/supplies they provide to us quirky film folk, more power to 'em. It doesn't get in my way, and keeps the stores alive for all of us.

EDIT: http://www.10thstreetcamera.com ... Certainly nothing from close to the 21st century in there. (Usual disclaimers apply: Not affiliated with, related to, etc.)
 
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The nearest store to my town is about 30 miles away. I do try to shop there. It's not like they need me that much; they have a very active business and actually sell chemicals, film and digital stuff. To me, the clincher is in the chemicals: they carry stuff I use, and if I'm in the area, I buy it. It's Holiday Camera in Geneva, IL.

Oh, they send film out for developing... and they charge a very pretty penny for it. Hence, for C41 I go to Walgreens (even closer!). For E-6, I have lots of Fuji and A&I mailers.
 
I'm close to two "decent" stores, probably the best two left in the area. One seems to be relatively easy to deal with, they value their used film gear (which they have a fair amount of) realistically even if the marked price is now way higher than market value. They will haggle, bargain and deal to make a sale.

The other store has scads of used film cameras, in varying states of workingness, does not mark anything with a price, and consistently values equipment like digital never killed film. I don't buy much there, but I go in and look fairly often, and sometimes ask if they have really esoteric and weird stuff just to see if they know what I'm talking about.

Film is available at both, but extremely overpriced.

Both seem to make their real money telling clueless buyers what point & shoot digital they need, and then making huge prints of the phtog's kids in their soccer uniforms. At least that's the best I can figure it out.
 
Yes and no. All of the camera gear I buy is older than I am and there are no used camera stores in the area, so I get that online. usually by trolling ebay, or the classifieds. Some of the more special chemicals I use to mix my own are bought online as well, I just haven't been able to find them locally. Same deal with some of the bulk films I use.

I do buy some of my general films and chemicals from the local pro store, who has an okay but not great selection of both. HC-110 and P3200, most frequently. I'm there often enough that they recognize me, and occasionally we chat about the latest greatest shiny new wonder.

I don't have the money for the latest dSLR or Apple products, whether locally sourced or not. I plan to stick to my film RF's until film can no longer be bought, stolen, or made by hand. At that point, I think I'll take up painting.
 
I live in a moderately large business/shopping district; more than half a dozen malls, where people spend weekends here doing their shopping. There were a few photographic dealers here but now all gone.

For a brief spell I worked at one doing sales, and that shop was known to be staffed by people who really knew about photography - and did the best film processing and printing from negatives and digital media. This also meant customers went in to pick our brains, try out the cameras, get the prices, and then spent the rest of the day walking around the discounters looking for a better price.

Once I demonstrated several cameras to a woman in the morning and gave her the quotes, then in the afternoon close to closing time, she came in again telling me, in a very rude way, that she bought one at a discount store not far from there at a better price... and gave me the bird as she departed. Not a young punk mind you but a middle-aged, well-dressed woman you would expect to be well-educated and well-mannered.

If she found that by spending a whole day running around to find a price five dollars cheaper, with no extended warranty we threw in for free, as a "bargain" - without regards to time spent and the cost of two meals - and felt so smug as to return to the shop for the purpose of giving me the bird, it would be no incentive for the small independent operators to persevere.
 
So, go to the local store and ask them to demo a camera, then you buy the same camera on the internet a little bit cheaper, then you take it to the same local store to explain to you how it works.

This is not sustainable behavior.

It's not even sane behavior.
 
I second The Camera Store here in Calgary. Decently stocked and staffed (with all the issues here in this city finding appropriate help). In most cases I'll support the local place, but money is money and if the difference is difficult to justify (factoring in shipping, duty, wait time) then to online shopping I go (CQ, Popflash). On hind site, The Camera Store is pretty competitive in terms of pricing and therefore really haven't had the need to go online for most things...
 
ClaremontPhoto said:
So, go to the local store and ask them to demo a camera, then you buy the same camera on the internet a little bit cheaper, then you take it to the same local store to explain to you how it works.

This is not sustainable behavior.

It's not even sane behavior.
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Not quite: she spent the whole day running around this whole shopping area checking out the prices at the chainstore discounters, staffed by people who did not know one end of a camera from the other, and bought from the one offering the lowest price.

And of course, they never consider the extra cost in snagging a bargain at five dolalrs less ends up costing them much much more than getting it from the first shop anyway. Along with internet mail order, this certainly did not do much good to the local mum-and-dad shops who can indeed offer good advices and hands-on examinations of the products, but yet do not get sales.
 
I shop locally whenever I can because to my mind it makes sense. Convenience and service often weigh heavier than a marginally lower price. I have known the owner of our local camera and film processing store for a long time. He makes a reasonable living but not a great living in my view. He is more concerned about the quality of his service. He knows what I want, appreciates,my custom, and suggests ways to improve my results, as he is a keen and accomplished photographer. I feel that I get more than I pay for.
 
Steve Bellayr said:
I have a local/professional store process all my film. Why deal with the chemicals?
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One word: control.

You can choose the dev and fine-tune it for the results you like.

Actually, it's cheaper and quicker as well. Figure in the cost of going to the store and the time it takes, apart from what they charge you, and developing your own looks even more attractive.

Cheers,

R.
 
I visit two stores in my area regularly. One is the only place I know near me that carries Rodinal and the other has the cheapest price on Fuji Neopan (in 120 at least).
 
Roger Hicks said:
One word: control.

You can choose the dev and fine-tune it for the results you like.

Actually, it's cheaper and quicker as well. Figure in the cost of going to the store and the time it takes, apart from what they charge you, and developing your own looks even more attractive.

Cheers,

R.
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Digital changes everything; when the man in the street thinks he can save heaps by getting a camera and inkjet printer from the local chainstore discounter and does everything himself... that's until he needs to get a new set of ink cartridges.
 
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