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First impressions are that it is a wild world out there, especially on the net merchant scene, and to some extent among retailers.
I've been beating the bushes for reliable competitive priced sources for camera equipment for a week or so. Reading the reviews of experiences (horror stories, basically) people have with on line merchants, I begin to wonder why people buy through what used to be called "mail order." Stop to think, it still is mail order--on the delivery end at least. And e mail order incoming.
The minority of reviews are grateful panegyrics describing with bated breath a non-horrific experience, i.e., the product was shipped as agreed.
I thought if it was that close of a call, why not just go to the retail stores in the first place? Price isn't that much of an issue, because mail order customers have reconciled themselves to buying at (relatively) high end anyway from the few reliable on line merchants like B&H.
But in this brave new world--read corporate shark-infested waters--the retailers pose hazards too. I phoned around to locate a camera in the Sacramento, California area. At the first business, one of the traditional brick and mortar camera shops of long standing in the area, the phone was answered by a tough and savvy older female voice. When I asked what the return policy was, instead of an answer, I got an aggressive "Why are you asking about a return policy?" question in return. The corn-oil corporate criminals of recent memory had a motto--"The customer is the enemy"-- and I felt something of the flavor of that mentality from this tough broad. Turns out this solid local long time camera store has no return policy, just an exchange or credit policy.
Next I talked to an area camera store I knew from past dealings to get an update. What was their return policy? They had one. Was there a "restocking fee?" Well, it depends, can it be sold as new, is it pristine, etc. The clerk agreed it would have to be negotiated on a case by case basis. A little probing later, he agreed that ANY product that has been sold and returned, no matter how complete, pristine, etc., is used (cannot legally, at least, be sold as new). So there would have to be a restocking fee in any/all cases. Thanks for the clarification. And did you kind of sideways admit you would sell it as new to the next customer to come along?
I actually visited a national multi-store retailer in Elk Grove to look at a camera. I knew they had a return policy and a 15% restocking fee, but hey, you have to do SOMETHING even if you don't like the deal. The extremely hyper young male salesperson was moving supersonically as he spoke and as his fingers jerked around the controls of the camera. His eyes were red---this was Saturday afternoon--and maybe he was feeling the effects of the night before. His knowledge showed some time spent in the job although he had to go to his Asian-American fellow salesperson guru for all the hard questions--like what was the minimum macro distance on this fairly high end DSLR. Come to find out it was .8 FEET (not inches), which I mentally calculated was about ten inches--not exactly what I had in mind for macro shooting.
Well, I could go on about other experiences with retailers, but you get the idea. Even face to face shopping can be daunting. Puts me in mind of a comment I got once from a fellow employee in the claims department of an insurance company--"You know, Jesse, cameras are kind of a racket."
You do have to recognize that cameras like jewelry are high markup combined with sometimes less than obvious qualities, and attract businesses that like the wiggle room this offers.
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