In a message dated 4/11/2005 9:04:07 AM Central Standard Time,
agschnozz@xxxxxxxxx writes:
This has been a quality experience and one that
totally suprised me. Without a doubt, I will utilize them for
future purchases. I'm a B&H junky and will continue to use them
for the bulk of my purchases, but it's always a good thing to
have options. Cameta is on my shortlist of photo retailers now.
My e-1 and a couple of lens came from Cameta last year and I was pleased
with the transaction. Although I would perhaps preferred to have bought from
one of my local purveyors, I went with the mail order/ebay folks.
My reasons, in order of importance are as follows:
1) The local retailers had no one who knew anything about the camera. There
was no one to "sell" it to me, although there were those who would allow me
to buy it from them.
2) Local pricing was not competitive and when sales tax was added in they
were not even close. I would buy at the high side of "close," if sales
support
and service were available, however if both were missing, I don't feel like
leaving a few hundred dollars on the table.
3) Service is important and I figure any service on this baby is going to
get done by Olympus and I can wrap it up and send it to Olympus as easily as
the
local retailer. It also avoids putting one more person in the loop.
I recently went to my local guy as I was passing by their shop and asked the
sales clerk if they had the flash cord for the e-1. Not only could he not
tell if they had it, he also couldn't look in his catalogue and tell what the
model number. When I got home, I determined the correct number and called
them back, to be told it was available for about $18 more than B&H plus the
sales tax and another 20 mile round trip to pick it up.
My experience maybe atypical, however I suspect not. Large purchases will
continue to be "price shopped," while others will go to the local guys.
Bill Barber
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