If you are about to buy photographic equipment, you may be interested in knowing the truth behind certain bargains and bargains that circulate between stores.
The big camera companies, the distributors, and the stores and final sales channels are under increasing pressure to sell more cameras. The competition between them is fierce, reaching limits that are sometimes unethical.
Today I would like to warn you about certain very unethical practices that many distributors and photo stores use to attract customers and sell more cameras. Please understand me, if you wanted to buy a camera with this I’m not saying stop doing it. Go ahead, but at least your purchase will be a little more rational if you read this 🙂
1) Daily Deals, Daily Bargains
Who does not know any of these online stores where every day they bring an item at a “very low” price, and where you only have that day to buy it at a “bargain” price? Well, most of these daily bargain online stores are honest, they work properly and you can’t blame them for anything. What is certain is that some have directly decided to make use of lies as a commercial promotion tool: they put the camera at a supposedly reduced price of 100 Euros when deep down it is not true, or not at all.
Example: they give you a camera reduced to 500 Euros and that its standard price in physical stores is, supposedly, 600 Euros. you see and say «man, 100 bucks that I save and I invite the relative to a dinner at the Palace, she’s going to freak out, you’ll see, go ahead, you have to give her to buy the camera this one». Yes ready! Look at it in a separate store, to see how much the camera really costs in a normal situation. Look at it in another store, and in another, and in another. Contrast it.
In the end, many times, you realize that this camera had never cost those supposed 600 Euros. That its standard price, without offer or bargain, was precisely 500 Euros. Or maybe 508 Euros and the savings is only 8 Euros (goodbye dinner at the Palace… well, Burger King yes maybe).
Again, there are pages of Daily Bargains that really work, where prices are really reduced. Check it before you bite. That’s all.
2) Day without VAT
Something similar happens with the day without VAT. Some stores declare the day without VAT, you do your accounts and you see it clearly: you have to buy. And you may be right. What it would be convenient to check in all ways is to what extent the price on which the VAT discount is going to be applied is really the fair price for that item. You know, there is no fair price, but I mean it has to be the price that that camera or lens has in the rest of the stores. Sometimes there may be differences, well okay, but if it happens that the store that offers the day without VAT is where you coincidentally find the most expensive price… mmmm… I don’t know. Bad business.
The next time you attend a day without VAT, make the purchases you have to make, take advantage of the occasion, it can indeed be a great opportunity. But never go without first having checked what what you want costs in the rest of the stores.
As a precaution more than anything.
3) Garish posters (yellow and pink) in the windows of the Bazaars
Please don’t let all the owners of the bazaars throw themselves at my neck. What I am going to describe is a practice that I have experienced firsthand in more than one of these bazaars where they sell you cameras, lenses, conversion lenses, MP3s and things like that. This does not mean that everyone is like that, many are honest. Surely the majority. I don’t know if mine will be bad luck but I’ll leave it here, for the record.
The trick of these gentlemen is that they put a very expensive item (camera, lens, tripod) in the window and put a little sign next to it with a price that is simply IMPOSSIBLE. An unimaginably cheap price. You see it and you don’t resist. You enter the store and kindly (try to contain your joy) you ask the clerk or manager: “Excuse me, I wanted this camera that puts so much in the window”.
From that moment on, you see how the clerk’s face begins to transform from a friendly smile to a face of embarrassment and pity as he answers you: “Ayyy… That one is just broken and I don’t have any more” or “Cachis en la mar…! That’s sold”.
Then continue «Hey, I can show you a cooler one and, in proportion, for the extras it brings and such, it almost works out better, listen to me».
After 7 minutes you leave the store loaded with a camera that you had never wanted to buy, having paid a normal price or just as expensive as in any other store. Neither bargain nor opportunity.
4) Photography courses that you cannot take advantage of
Many distributors sell SLR cameras in kit (body + lens) and as a commercial hook they offer a face-to-face photography course, as a gift with the purchase of the camera. What many buyers are unaware of is that the course takes place in a city other than their own, and that in order to take advantage of it they would have to travel to Madrid, Barcelona, Seville or who knows.
It has annoyed us.
5) Extras you don’t really need
Sometimes we are faced with the question of which camera to buy, the one that comes with the body only (perhaps with a lens), or the one that comes with a camera and lens plus a series of extras such as a case, memory card, a manual, etc.
Before rushing into this second option, consider to what extent it is worth paying that difference in price for those extras. Are you really going to take advantage of them? Maybe you already have enough memory cards and you don’t need them, or maybe you want to buy them separately to choose ones that are of very good quality. The camera case is interesting, but I know many users who had to leave the case in a drawer because they found, after a few weeks, that they needed a real backpack that would fit the camera and accessories, a camera that one can carry everyone sides, and not an awkward little case.
In the end this will depend on the personal case of each one, so value the extras before rushing.
With today’s article I think I have earned the enmity of camera brands and distributors. I am sorry.
If you think it might be interesting, pass it on. Thanks.