Never the less, one has to admit that the pricing exposes a lot of P1's pricing policy... I wonder how long it'll be before that Credo 50 will appear into the market... and the price of it! ...Obviously in Hasselblad they don't like their customers to have other maker backs on their cameras, will they avoid Leaf too?
The high P1 list pricing allows them to
1) set a substantially lower wholesale price and reward the dealers for prescribing P1, and make sure that dealers who sell P1 provide good service. Which is a good thing for customer and dealer alike, provided the customer can afford the spare cash.
2) create an incentive for P1 rental as buying wholesale is cheap and renting out is indexed on list. This can be good for everybody because it creates a lively rental market, albeit an expensive one.
3) Make money for their owners. This can mean the company sticks around and makes better products, although they are sold to the select few.
However although high list prices with good dealer margins can seem to be good business, they do create a tempting entry point for cheap competition and then they kill you because you and your channel have become bloated. I don't think MF dealers are enjoying the D810 release, even though they will tell you that the D810 does not compete with MF.
BTW, in some markets in some countries (of course not in the honest US), high priced products sell well to institutions because of paid-back buyer commissions, and high priced rentals also play well because they are settled by the customer who wants "the best" and then generate paid back renter commissions.
Edmund