On more than one occasion I've been told that the prices I pay for film from
B&H are lower than the wholesale prices most dealers pay. This was
definitely true back in the early nineties when I worked photo retail. This
wasn't even the gray-market stuff, either.
How we retailers managed to survive was through value-add. We discounted the
price of film to barely above bleeding prices (which was then somewhat
competitive with B&H or other mailorder houses when you factored in shipping
and handling) and made our money on the back-end through photo processing.
Actually, in those days, the camera business was basically just a front for
photo processing, anyway.
Photo retail today is another story altogether. There is no longer a photo
processing revenue stream to keep the doors open. This puts the retailers in
a situation where they need to make more income on the front-end and when
the suppliers create an uneven playing field for you, then it is a problem.
But as somebody else mentioned, there is something called "Price Fixing"
which is illegal.
AG
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