i find this thread very interesting - and the reason is that this situation here with pentax is exactly the same that i have experienced in my career
in short, great product, great features, easy to use, does the job, selling well overseas but no one wants to buy it here... the question is "why?"
the answer is not so simple...but i'll attempt to highlight the major points (again, my experience). these points are - perception and mindset of customers, lack of "risk" appetite, no visibility, no announcements of success, no signs of presence or ease of availability...
let's take each of the above points:
1. perception - there is a clear perception that canon/nikon are the best - pentax is not doing any thing to change this perception. you see - "best" is a very relative term, and pentax has to hitch on some definition and be the best at ti, and work to make sure that it's definition of "best" is the widely accepted definition
2. lack of risk appetite - most customers think - oh, so many people using canon/nikon, so let's buy that... because easy to get lenses, or service or even a second-hand market to sell it - they go with the herd... you see the papers regarding some famous photographer coming to singapore, and what is he using? no prizes for guessing
3. no visibility - take any paper and you'll see ads for nikon/canon/sony... see photo contests, and the sponsor is nikon/canon/sony. ...
in a recent digital life supplement of the straits times, they had a coverage of photokina germany ... we all know pentax won a star award, but did the paper even mention it?
now, we may think that paper is not the right medium, but hey, that's what the average guy on the street is reading... and if he sees sony/canon/nikon there, in the context of photokina, to him that's all there is...
4. no announcement of success - let me explain this with what sony is doing.. its announcing to the whole world everyday that they are singapore's #1 ... of course, there is no mention of #1 on what metric... just that they are #1 ... this sinks into people's minds, and suddenly sony is an important
5. presence/availability - go to funan/sls or any other mall, which camera stares at you? its surely not pentax... a customer will buy only what he sees... if he cannot see a product, he won't buy it
very few make research a key part of their buying decision... i know of many people who have spent $1500-2000 on a nikon/canon kit in some it show on a whim... when in fact, the pentax is cheaper ... but since they don't see it, they don't buy it
here itself on cs, there are so many threads asking for pentax price... how many ask for canon/nikon pricing? they don't have to ... its stuffed down their throat every day in the papers...
now, it could be that this is pentax's strategy, which is fine.. i am no one to advise pentax on that... however, any sales strategy hinges on a few things: (a) you still need enough sales to invest in product development; (b) if there is no critical mass of customers, then the product's life is brutally cut short and (c) the exit barrier for customers is low -customers will jump to other products and pentax won't even know it...
therefore, it is critical for a company like pentax to keep good visibility, and give customers assurance that there is a line of products/lenses on the production line...
sorry if this sounds like a sermon, but the situation was so analogous to what i have seen, i just felt i had to put my views down...
