Nothing new under the sun.
The Pro Centre in Mallow Street, London EC1V was opened many years ago by Hasselblad amid wails of anguish from the normal dealers, who feared being squeezed out.
Well, many were, and not only by H. My own local dealer (central Scotland), who provided me with two new 500 Series bodies, two A12 backs, three lenses, Softars and several other expensive filters and a Polaroid back was eventually given the shove because he couldn'd move enough product to keep H happy. When he told me the news, he told me that he couldn't buy product from H at the prices that London dealers were selling!
Now as I've said before (and which follows remarks made in another thread in reply to Cooter yesterday), you can't run business on the cheapest price system. You also have to be fair and supply your outlets at the same price. Then, it's up to them, the big boys, and their internal advantages of scale to keep retail prices competitive. It ceases to work when differet dealers buy at different prices. That's gang warfare, bully-boy tactics, decreases product visibility and will ultimately fail. If H does become a monopoly selling outlet, then perhaps it will, perversely, create a level playing field: there will be only themselves with whom to fight for profitability against other manfacturers; the little fat off the dealers' backs will have vanished from the banquet table.
Tesco's CEO in the UK has just left his post after they produced lower figures this year, which since they reflect the position before he took over, seems crazy. But there you are: greed is absurd; heads must be seen to fly off necks. The fact that they have grown so gigantic within the UK market and thus leave almost no room for expansion seems to have passed these people by. Growth, growth, growth; the only growth you can depend on is a fucking tumour.
Rob C
