At 22:16 12/8/01, Morgan Sparks wrote:
I stopped by Wal-Mart the other day to pick up a bunch of 4-packs of Kodak
Gold 100, and it was no longer stocked!
Morgan Sparks
I don't believe Kodak is discontinuing it, but do believe many discount
department stores are dropping it from their stock because they sell much
more ISO 400 and 800 films than ISO 200, and especially ISO 100.
Reason?
Look at the specs for the ubiquitous zoom P&S's. Owners of these are the
overwhelming buyers of color negative consumer films. Their lenses are
snail slow. The faster ones will open to f/5.6, and that's with the zoom
at the shortest focal length. Zoomed out it's often f/11 or even
slower. Now look up the GN's for the integral flashes found on
them. Combine very slow lenses with the puny, weak-knee flashes and you
need ISO 400 or ISO 800 film. Even the manuals for them recommend ISO 400
as an all-around general purpose *outdoor* daylight film!
The majority of "consumer" Wunderbrick owners do not use slow films much
either. Look up the specs on the 35-80 zooms bundled with them, and the GN
for their integral flip-up flashes. The lenses are a little faster and the
flash has a little more oomph, but it's still not the lens speed and
bolt-on flash power typical for manual focus system users.
Within retail marketing, the value of floor and shelf space is often
measured by how fast the product that occupies it moves. If what's there
doesn't move very fast, it may (ultimately will) get replaced with
something that does. The theory is measuring and predicting $$ of sales
revenue per square foot of floor space. Increase this throughout a store
by devoting all available space to only the fastest moving items, and
revenue for the store increases overall. K-Mart and Wal-Mart are among the
"true believers" in this principle. This utterly ignores customer
convenience by providing things they occasionally want, or what a few of
them may desire, so that they will always go there first to find something
in hopes of one-stop-shopping. If there's a Meijer near you, try
there. They also follow the ?-Mart method, just not as fervently.
-- John
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