Strange situation at Rollei USA

Rollei USA is advertising specials on the 6008I and 6008AF kits on

their website. However a manager at B&H says Rollei USA has

their "own" specials which are not honored by their Rollei USA

dealers. A call to the Rollei specialist at Ctrade confirms this

situation.

 

What a strange way to market a high end MF camera. Sounds like a

company that is about to go under.

Yeah, I saw this too. So where does one buy these Rollei specials from if not

from dealers like Ctrades and B&H? Is Rollei now selling direct to

consumers?

Charles, I just "don't get it". Why would a powerhouse like B&H allow the US distributor to sell directly to the consumer at a price lower than offered by a authorized retailer?

 

Rollei USA's website appears to have been done by a novice.

The website does not even show Ctrades as their Dealer..!?

As usual I agree with Lakhinder. The new dealer choices are perplexing at best. Central Camera in Chicago - I wonder whether any of them has ever been there or dealt with them. I encourage them to just get in a plane and come visit... Helix would do a good job representing them, even though they are ridiculously overpriced, but so is Central.

 

In the recent years, there have been two dealers who have spent an enormous amount of personal effort, passion, and dedication to the Rollei brand toward keeping US sales up. These are Mike at CTrades and Eli Kurland. Both are no longer listed. IMHO, this is fairly shortsighted. Rollei completely underestimates and always has (IMHO) the importance of service, customer opinion, and word of mouth advertising here in the States. They may think we are just a bunch of dummies impressed by the Rollei brand. But here, the pros very carefully consider their investments (rightfully so), and listen to somebody they trust, a colleague, or a trustworthy dealer. While it's entirely up to Rollei, whom they pick to represent them, these sorts of changes most certainly will cause another decline of their consumer image here in the States.

Thomas, I appreciate your thoughts but why is the US distributor selling their product directly to the retail customer at a cheaper price than B&H (a franchised dealer for Rollei) can?

Robert, since you are asking me: I remember that they contracted a package with Phase One, which they are now selling off, possibly to peak interest in the brand, or to make room for an update. Who knows?

 

I am not sure whether it's really the worst of all strategies at this point though. The company has become much smaller, and sales are probably not very high in the U.S. anymore. Look at Alpa, they only sell through Jeff at Badger. When you visit B&H in person, they everytime ask you why you don't buy a Hasselblad if you even mention the name Rollei.

 

You have a point though in terms of communication. They should have discussed this with their dealers in a way that it is uniformly presented to the customers. It is obviously one of their many marketing flaws that have occured over 20 years, and I wouldn't say it's the worst or a sign of a company that is about to go under. It is them, as they always have been, whether they go under or not... It is all so obvious that it has stimulated a decade of disbelief and backseat marketing here on the net. From that point of view it's more a miracle that they are still afloat.

 

Buying Rollei is as if you could buy Albert Einstein in a camera store. You get the genius, and you get the personality. And you often wonder whether you really want so much genius in camera construction. Yes, the camera is just a tool, as they all say, but it is the tools that make it happen...

I just visited the B&H website and with the exception of a few models and older lenses the

Rollei range is special order. It seems to me Rollei has a distribution problem. If the

products aren't selling the dealers won't stock them because they don't want to tie up their

cash flow with slow merchandise. This is basically the same problem Leica has and certain

slow models are a la carte or essentially special order. Maybe Rollei USA has decided to

bypass the dealers and sell direct. This will make the products cheaper as distribution

costs are high. Consumers these days buy online anyway and with online reviews

everywhere there is little need to touch and hold the product prior to purchase. These

days you can walk to any dealer anywhere and pick up whatever Hasselblad, Mamiya,

Nikon, and Canon bits you need. Rollei and Leica can't possibly compete with that level of

product availability no matter what they do. Direct sales may just be a good idea.

I have been informed by Foto-Partner (Strasser) at Hamburg some weeks ago that they will be the official distributer for Rollei in GERMANY. Foto-Partner is a local foto dealer and has several shops at Hamburg. But, if you visit their shops you will hardly find a Rollei there. You can deal with them through internet orders or direct orders. MF sales seems to be slow, so Rollei will not distribute GERMANY any longer directly. With this only a handful dealer might sell Rolleis here, and most part are available on order only.

"These days you can walk to any dealer anywhere and pick up whatever Hasselblad, Mamiya, Nikon, and Canon bits you need. Rollei and Leica can't possibly compete with that level of product availability no matter what they do. Direct sales may just be a good idea."

 

Direct sales and online are propably the way to go. When it comes to Hasselblad, Mamiya, Nikon and Canon, it depends where one lives. I live in north Europe, so for me it is mostly online anyway as shops here are selling mainly Canon, Nikon and some other DSLR plus digital P&S cameras. So, no Mamiyas here.

 

I have used Foto-Partner from Hamburg and this far everything has been OK. Rollei has also european www shop buyrollei.de, but it seems to be more expensive than Foto-partner.

 

But, if sales speeds are so low, how are they able to design new stuff?

I really want to know, why such a lot of photographers are hanging with such a "deep love"

on something called "local camera-/photosupply-store"?

In the last twenty years of my life as a professional photographer I hardly entered a

camerastore to buy what I needed. All equipment, film,paper,chemicals I ordered by phone

or internet depending on price, availability and other relevant points, from allover the

world. very often directly from factories. The supplying houses are located in Hamburg, in

Poole (GB), London, New York, between NYC and SF, Cologne , Berlin...and I'm living in

Switzerland and in Sweden. And the gear is always serviced straight in the factory, if

necessary.

This because I'm able to pick up the phone and post my order as the salesclerk would do

it. Is it not so simple? Or did I oversee something?

 

Cheers, Urs

People has to realise that in most instances product distribution can cost more than making

the product itself. I am not specifically referring to cameras but generally everything we use

that are made overseas.

I too noticed the (lack of) dealer listings on the revamped site, but that's not why I sent an email to the US President. My concern was their use of lo res PDF files on the web site to portray photographs of incredible resolution and beauty. I told him that PDF brochures were OK, but that promotional, freee standing pictures should be displayed directly, otherwise they look like needlepoint. And I wished them well.

 

I've never had a response. (and they sure have enough of my warranty cards on file to find my address...)

 

Sad,

Ray Hull

It's all fairly easy. We just wait until their next insolvency and then take over. Lakhinder will be president, Robert organize import/export, Ray Hull will be marketing director, William Carter in charge of customer service, Jean-Louis will work on SL66 image preservation, and I'll help with whatever. We keep the production and engineering department and hire some computer support from India. Dealers will be Eli Kurland and Mike/CTrades. We actually would be doing it mostly for the fun of it - like when the employees bought back Harley Davidson. Sounds like the logical thing to me...

 

Cheers all and thanks for the good spirits!!!

Great Plan, Thomas! And IPO in about 12 months thereafter...; I promise. Photo.net members get the first cut of shares in google styled IPO. But they have to be subscribers (of photo.net) for at least

6 months...

<i>It's all fairly easy. We just wait until their next insolvency and then take over. Lakhinder will be president, Robert organize import/export, Ray Hull will be marketing director, William Carter in charge of customer service, Jean-Louis will work on SL66 image preservation, and I'll help with whatever. We keep the production and engineering department and hire some computer support from India. Dealers will be Eli Kurland and Mike/CTrades. We actually would be doing it mostly for the fun of it - like when the employees bought back Harley Davidson. Sounds like the logical thing to me...

Cheers all and thanks for the good spirits!!!

</i><p>

 

Eh, the engineer is already right here. Can fix all the issues with Rollei electronics with ease ;-)