support local camera shops

i just moved to pa and im looking to purchase a new 50d but none of the local camera shops want to price match bh, jr, or adorama. Any advice guys?

thanks

buy online from said vendors?

Unfortunately if you want to support your local economy you have to pay that bit extra.

Not sure where in PA. you are, but I buy 90% of my 'stuff' from Allen's Camera in Levittown,PA. Has a basic website. If you search the forums, you will see that a lot of us buy from Allen. And I'm outside of NYC!

im located in allentown i just called allen's camera and he has the same price as jr but he's a hour drive away argh what to do

I would do the hour drive in a heartbeat just to check out the place and possibly make some new friends.

Not sure what your tax hit will be though vs online

tax would be 6%

morpheus6d9 wrote in post #7010513
i just moved to pa and im looking to purchase a new 50d but none of the local camera shops want to price match bh, jr, or adorama. Any advice guys?

thanks

One thing you have to remember is that local stores are different from an online store. There are set figures across the board that set the minimum an item can be sold for. I know with Canon there is a Net price (for the net) and a MAP price (for local stores). Stores have to follow this if they want to be able to honor rebates and get advertising credit. Also, if its a small store, they are paying a lot more than a B&H to purchase that item for resell. The more you buy, the bigger the discount. I know my local shop probably moves as much Canon in a year as to what B&H does in a couple of days. Supporting local business is good and its nice you want to do that.

If you use your local shop for anything else - accessories, paper, ADVICE, you should support the local shop. If you do not, it will not be around much longer and encourage others to do the same.

Steve

If you really want to support them, dont ask for a price match. They pay a different price than the big guys. So when they price match, they dont make much money. That is not very supportive to me.

So do you really want to support them, or do you want a good price?

I bought my XSi at retail for this reason.

I could get it cheaper, but I chose to support a store who's owner lives in the same town as I.

Mark1 wrote in post #7015740
So do you really want to support them, or do you want a good price?

In my recent experience neither of my local stores stocked what I was looking for--but we've got a catalog--and we can get it for you in about a week--for full retail

If you're in Allentown check out Dan's Camera near Rt 22 and 15th St. I've purchased a few smaller $$$ items from them and have always been very helpful. Their prices won't be the same as the big guys, but if you build a relationship with them or purchase accessories they will throw you bones here and there.

- Chris

I have a camera store by my office that couldn't match Amazon's price on the 85mm f/1.8 I just purchased. They did however knock the price down a bit. All they asked is to pay cash if possible so they wouldn't lose an additional 3% due to credit card fees. I was more than happy to oblige

I would love to buy local but the camera folks around are always more expensive. If they would at least match, i would pay the taxes but they dont.