Originally Posted by Bob
Read this from above.
http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2009.04.24/state-of-the-slr-industry-2009
I'm sure small Joe Shmoe places don't get the credits B&H will, but read the part about Wolf/Ritz and 40 million lost in lenses.
<span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"]Well.... I was gonna get a new lens when rebates came out.... doesn't seem as though the price is all that different now... might as well save til I can really afford it.
5D mark III, 50D, 17-40 f4L, 24-70 f2.8L, 70-200 f4L IS, 28 f1.8, 50 f1.8, 85 f1.8, 100 f2.8 Macro
When the US Dollar strengthens vs. the Japanese Yen the price of Japanese goods should go down!
Yep that fact hit me when I reading that article over at the Lens Rental site where he talked about currency differences.
Rick
Just checked the B&H site, the 24-70 2.8L with rebate is now at the same price it was before the rebate. I checked some of the other lenses I have on my wishlist and it appears (to me anyway) that only the lenses that have a rebate went up. Specifically the 300mm 2.8 L didn't go up a penny. If the whole currency thing was an issue wouldn't all of there products go up the same percentage including camera bodies making that lens several hundred dollars more then it was? It sounds like a load of garbage to me. I noticed the same thing with Sandisk rebates in the past. Has anyone noticed non-rebate items prices going up?
Fred~
<div>Here is a quote from the article regarding the Dollar vs. the Yen. It doesn't seem like the strongest argument in the world to me but admittedly I'm no expert in international money markets!</div>
"The Dollar versus the Yen
The party line for most of the price increases has been that the buying power of the dollar has weakened significantly against the yen. This is true, the dollar dropped from 110 yen in August, 2008 to 90 yen in January, 2009. On the other hand, the dollar has rebounded to 100 yen by March, 2009. When you consider that most multinational companies hedge currency pretty effectively the change doesn’t seem enough to justify the price increases, but I’m sure it does contribute to them to some degree. Or at least justifies them to some degree. The Euro has had a slightly greater loss against the yen than the dollar and European prices seem to have increased more than U. S. prices, so maybe there is something to it. But Japanese prices have increased too, so maybe not all that much."
Please don't spread FUD. It's not $40M lost, it's $40M valued as an asset line item in a bankruptcy filing. Those lenses weren't stolen or destroyed, they're perfectly sellable goods. Wolf/Ritz can and does sell lenses, often at a higher price than Adorama/B&H/etc. but there's no reason that they can't be sold. Wolf/Ritz can sell them at their normal pricing, sell them closer to superstore pricing and make less profit per item but move them faster, or sell them below superstore pricing at even less profit or possibly a small loss. Regardless, we the community can and will buy them (somehow). The manufacturers can still get most or all of their wholesale cost back, assuming they haven't been paid already (I suspect they're going to be slow-paid under the bankruptcy filing terms for recently-delivered stock, as it was probably sent on net terms of some form).
We're a Canon/Profoto family: five cameras, sixteen lenses, fifteen Profoto lights, too many modifiers.
I just ordered canon 35mm 1.4 On 04/21 with J&R even though It's been back ordered for a while on their web site and they shiped it on 04/29 and i received my lens on 05/04(standerd free shiping), pretty fast and smooth.price? $1180, age of the lens?UX0406. I'm very happy I did that. same thing happened to my 135mm 2.0 with Adorama($935 right before they raised their price and code number UX0312).I hope these information may help those who wants to buy lenses now.
Please don't spread FUD. It's not $40M lost, it's $40M valued as an asset line item in a bankruptcy filing. Those lenses weren't stolen or destroyed, they're perfectly sellable goods. Wolf/Ritz can and does sell lenses, often at a higher price than Adorama/B&H/etc. but there's no reason that they can't be sold. Wolf/Ritz can sell them at their normal pricing, sell them closer to superstore pricing and make less profit per item but move them faster, or sell them below superstore pricing at even less profit or possibly a small loss. Regardless, we the community can and will buy them (somehow). The manufacturers can still get most or all of their wholesale cost back, assuming they haven't been paid already (I suspect they're going to be slow-paid under the bankruptcy filing terms for recently-delivered stock, as it was probably sent on net terms of some form).
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Sorry. Not spreading FUD (whatever that is). I see how my statement ending like that may have sounded like that. I should have said that is how much they claimed in the bankruptcy. My point was to direct reader to the section of the article so they could read what I was talking about, with them owing creditors for those lenses.
I know it wasn't lost and that the lenses were probably returned. My point was that the companies were still owed for the equipment. I realize the lenses were either sold off or returned.
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Get an accounting book and check into "LIFO" (Last In, First Out) versus "FIFO" (First In, First Out). Those are two (but not the only) different ways of accounting for the value of inventory. How a company accounts for inventory can affect the way they set their prices. (It can have a marked effect on their taxes, as well, if the prices are going up.)
By Bob's logic, if Canon offered a rebate on new lenses, then B&H should wait until all the lenses in their inventory were sold before offering the rebate. Similarly, if the yen drops, then they should wait until they've sold all their inventory before changing prices. That would be a bit difficult, as they would have to track every product and change its price according to their sales, maybe on a daily, even hourly basis. Retail stores don't do that.
George Slusher
Lt Col, USAF (Ret)
Eugene, OR
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