Is B&H a monopoly?

Yes.. I have been using NewEgg as a system builder since.. well long before they were called NewEgg....


It's a long story.. but the chain "Egghead" was failing and closed all there stores. They liquidated, merged with "Deal Deal.com" and became "egghead" on line...

Still went belly up.. filed chapter something or other.. and came back as Newegg.

I just thought since it was listed as a good online retailer in a thread about a big camera monopoly in a photo forum, it would have cameras in stock...my bad guess I was wrong


Julie

No - Ritz may be a mallnopoly, but there are plenty of other brick-and-mortar places around, even here in their home turf outside DC.

Forget all the good things I said!

Ordered one of the Lexar 1 gig cCF cards. Ordered on the 27th. Not shipped until the 31st. Shipped in a soft plastic envelope and the box was CRUSHED.

Poor packing is my first issue.

When placed in my 10D the camera said "No CF card"

My reader could see it, format it AND write to it, but the camers said no.

DOA brings me to a slow simmer...

After sitting throught the press some dumb number to get where you dont really want to go anyway, I did get shuffled to the return dept. They DID handle the UPS return label OK, but heres the pain- They wont do ANYTHING about a replacement until they get this broken one back! The parrot just kept reading his script. Even telling him I dont care if they charge me a sceond time and then credit me, didn't alter his speech pattern.

Good thing my MICRODRIVE is still going strong!

-Pete

The first time I have ever been disappointed with B&H

Just getting out of my system, which is why I used this thread.

The evil B&H because of the evil/conniving Canon. Shipped my new toy today. So of course I have to travel all of next week (as in I get back Friday around midnight (and if the airlines cooperate). So unfair; couldn't Canon have gotten it to them a couple of days earlier so I could have played with it over the Labor Day weekend, No that would have ruined their evil marketing strategy.

There I think I have most of it out of my system now.

I am impatiently waiting for the new Canon XL-2 video camera. To be fair BH is not at blame (at least I hope not), but I do think Canon should have released for 31 Aug instead of 2 Sept.

I got it for three reasons.

1. I want one (this one is probably 80% of the reason)

2. I have a deal where I can make it available for rent (thus recoping some of the cost)

3. One of my friends runs a 'pay-per-view' site and if I ever shoot for him, he said it would make the shoot more valuable (ie I get more money) if I can shoot a short behind the scenes video to go with the stills.

4. One of the primary things I wanted in a video camera was the ability to be compatable with my camera lenses. With the adapter it is (sort of in my mind). the crop factor is about 12x so that makes my 16-35 a telephoto lens, think what I can do with my 100-400 with extenders (ignoring the fact it will be too dark to see anything). The cool part for me is the video camera is almost better then the orginal video camera on the USAF's Predator.

Did I mention that I was impatiently waiting for it....

Thanks for your patience,

No, they're definitely not a monopoly. They have plenty of competitors.

I prefer OneCall myself because it's relatively close to where I am (Vancouver, BC) and I usually get stuff shipped to Point Roberts, WA where is 15 minutes away. Then I just bring it back over the border like nothing happened.

I visited their actual retail location in Spokane recently. It's pretty damn big and everyone is friendly. Shipping is cheap since it's within the same state and costs roughly $5 for a relatively good sized shipment (two lenses and a bag)