Pentax pricing strategy seriously wrong?

You are right, the Pentax web site needs some work but by the same token the Canon UK site is not that much to write home about.
Out of all the bigger DSLR manufactures I think Nikon and Olympus have the most 'together' web sites.
Pentax UK seems to lack any cohesive direction to their web design, it all looks a little 'post it note' to me. The US and and more so the Japanese sites are much better, I would have thought it would make sense for the UK to use the English version of the Japanese site or something very similar.

Getting off topic slightly but marketing has a great deal to do with this discussion or at least it should do. The product line website is a key part of this.

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Regards Huw

Have to agree with you Greytop, recently went to download a manual and it directs you to another page when you click and go you get a message that the page is no longer available and to choose from the menu on the left - there is no menu on the left.

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Jackie H
K7, K20D, istDS, Optio SV, ME
Most used glass
50mm f1.4, 60-250mm, 28-80mm,
Sigma 105mm 2.8 Macro & Bertha 50-500

As for the first: Credibility? Think so? I just checked prices here in Denmark. If I had a Nikon I could go into a reputed seller and pick up a Nikon 12-24 for 7000 dkr. or a Tokina 12-24 for 5300 dkr. The Tokina is of course more or less the same as the Pentax one. I could only find the Pentax 12-24 in a Danish webshop for 9000 dkr.

Exchange rate is 1000 £ = 8500 dkr. The Danish dollar has held up very well to the other currencies including sterling.

I would like to hear Pentax' CEO define credibility - in my book it's not credible that I can buy pretty much the same lens for 40% less of the price if it says Tokina on the front and is equipped with a competitors mount (a competitor making very attractive bodies!). I'm a rational being who don't give s**t what the badge says if the quality is right. Perhaps I'm just not the customer Pentax want. The same goes for the other Tokina/Pentax lenses.

As for quote 2: I don't know if Pentax has a strategy at all. I sure don't see it and I can see from the other posts around here that nobody else can. We can make more or less educated guesses ... I find it obvious though, that this lack of apparent strategy is not helping them at all. Uncertainty is a bit of a killer.

Now, I have the Pentax 12-24 (and more or less what else I need), so lucky me ...

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Hi. My name is Joel and I'm a travelholic.
Stolen kit: Pentax K7 #3428965 and Pentax FA 43mm #0028350

Well
As I said, who knows, and I have no idea. But there is always more than one way of seeing things. I was just pointing out that if Sigma and Tamron withdrew support from Pentax, because Pentax lenses were so priced that they look the lion's share of the market for Pentax-mount lenses leaving only crumbs for third parties, that might do more damage to Pentax as a brand than selling far fewer of their own lenses by virtue of very high prices. Just speculation, it being a slow Sunday night ...

So it seems that all the none € countries have a big price raise.
The DA 12-24 is here €719,00 = £629,00
Nikon 12-24 €799,00 = £699,00

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Stefan


K10D, K5
DA* 16-50, DA* 50-135, D-FA 100 Macro, DA 40 Ltd, DA 18-55
AF-540FGZ

A few points to address from the above.

If Pentax are going for a niche, then how small can they afford that niche to be? R&D, and manufacturing, costs for new bodies and lenses are no doubt large and would require a reasonably substantial base of Pentax customers in order to remain a going concern.

Meanwhile, the pricing of the bodies doesn't indicate this strategy. If Pentax were going for a high-end niche then surely they wouldn't be pricing the bodies so competitively? Rather the body pricing seems to indicate that - like other manufacturers - they have identified that the profit is in the lenses. Only problem being that the price of Pentax glass is such that any newbie investigating the options would surely think twice despite the value represented by the bodies.

However, there is one important caveat. This only really seems to apply to the UK and (to a lesser extent?) continental Europe. Check out the prices of Pentax lenses on Amazon US and you'll find that they aren't that much more expensive (in US$) than they were a year ago (when I was investigating the possibility of buying from the US). At the current exchange rate, most of the lenses are around the price in the UK before the recent hike. Also, prices from Ebay sellers in the Far East don't seem to have increased much. So perhaps Pentax have just decided to pursue a different strategy in those parts of the world where they don't sell in large quantities? If so, that's bad news for us!

Re. Sigma increases - perhaps these weren't consistent across their full range, but of the lenses I am aware of the increases haven't been too significant. For example, the 10-20 went up from about £330 to £390; the 17-70 from £220 to 245; the 105 macro from £305 to 375.

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Mhuni

500px

So what's the situation in Holland? Is Pentax present in the shops?

I think I can say with some confidence that prices in Denmark unlike UK are not related to currency-fluctuations - Danish kroner is tightly locked to Euros and I have not seen anything like this on other merchandise. The K-7 seems to be available in at least one chain of stores at a fairly attractive price. It's only when you want a new lens with that camera you get in trouble! Unfortunately I think this is as far as Pentax's strategy goes for my country. I'll try asking this question on a Danish Forum: Have Pentax dumped Scandinavia as a market?

Maybe you UK guys have to get used to importing your lenses from abroad with the possible hassles that might entail (I have been lucky so far).

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Hi. My name is Joel and I'm a travelholic.
Stolen kit: Pentax K7 #3428965 and Pentax FA 43mm #0028350

I've no idea what the user base is for Pentax cameras now across Europe, but it must be considerable?

Maybe the strategy, if there was one, was to wait until the user base was large enough and then start to increase the price of Pentax lenses to boost profitability. People who have invested heavily in a camera system are reluctant to change brands, so are more likely to keep buying into the system?

I could be wide of the mark, as lens prices across all brands seem to have gone stupid the last 6 months, and they have risen well above the yen/sterling exchange rate.

I understand that energy makes up 21% of the total cost of glass production. I wonder what effect this had, in view of last years energy price rises. As an example I understand Pilkington Glass increased the Window glass prices by 50% in May of this year.

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Barrie
Too Old To Die Young
.
Pentax K5x2 K20D Q I-10 01 02 DA*300 A50/2.0 A50/1.7 FA50/1.4 FA100/3.5 K55/1.8 M40/2.8 M200/4.0 FA135/2.8 FA35 DA70/2.4 FA28-70 DA10-17 DA18-55WR DA16-45 DA17-70 DA55-300 DA50-200WR DA*50-135 Sigma 24,50,105,180 8-16 17-70 24-70 150-500 400/5.6MF Tamron 70-200/2.8 17/3.5MF 28/2.5MF 90/2.5MF 300/2.8MF

The local shop here has the K7 in the window with his standard lenses and besides that he has the 16-45mm and the 40mm, the rest he can order from the supplier.
He does not mind you try out the lens first and decide afterward if you want it,even he has ordered it for you so no real problem getting and trying out Pentax gear here.
I don't know what the other shops do here but in the major cities I'm sure you can find several shops that has the K7.

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Stefan


K10D, K5
DA* 16-50, DA* 50-135, D-FA 100 Macro, DA 40 Ltd, DA 18-55
AF-540FGZ

Having visited Jessops yesterday to buy some batteries, £11 for a lithium battery to fire up an SFXn - dont ask why - I enquired about a 67mm CPL filter and was quoted £113.

Given the relative complexity, the amount of elements and the shipping cost of a lens etc., this makes £600 for a lens seem like an absolute bargain. Dont you think so...?

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Ken

Some costs up 21%. Prices up 50%. Sounds like a good British company to me.

G

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Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.

The Parent company is Japanese. What it said was, 21% of the cost of production is energy costs.

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Barrie
Too Old To Die Young
.
Pentax K5x2 K20D Q I-10 01 02 DA*300 A50/2.0 A50/1.7 FA50/1.4 FA100/3.5 K55/1.8 M40/2.8 M200/4.0 FA135/2.8 FA35 DA70/2.4 FA28-70 DA10-17 DA18-55WR DA16-45 DA17-70 DA55-300 DA50-200WR DA*50-135 Sigma 24,50,105,180 8-16 17-70 24-70 150-500 400/5.6MF Tamron 70-200/2.8 17/3.5MF 28/2.5MF 90/2.5MF 300/2.8MF

Sounds like a good Japanese company to me.

G

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Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.

No, being me, I just see this as evidence of how over-priced filters are, not least dare I say it those made by Hoya.

Actually, the price of filters is also symptomatic of rip-off Europe. I've bought Hoya and Kenko filters off Ebay and had them sent to Ethiopia for a fraction of the price they cost in the UK.

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Mhuni

500px