JESSOPS to Close

Jessops Hinckley store to close, and further 200 jobs cut, full info on the Amateur Photographer web site.

More doom and gloom. Who's next in these hard times..

Does this mean Jessops are cutting back on outlets again?
Or are they just 'consolidating' there position?
If they were competative on price and carried a better range they may not be in this position

The trouble is that being competitive means lower prices and it's difficult to make a profit when prices are low and overheads (staff and premises included) are high. The High Street model is much more difficult than say an Internet-based supplier, where costs are much lower.

You also need to buy in goods and pay for them, usually before they are sold and generate income, so a wide range means high stocking costs.

So I don't think Jessops are in the best of positions. Lowering prices is not the answer to their survival, because it will increse their rate of losing money. They were doing well once, and probably over-stretched by expanding too fast and at the wrong time.

True, but when I can walk across town to an independent shop who is lower on some, not all prices, something must be wrong with the Jessops model.

Yes indeed and it's wrong with quite a few High Street shops as well at the moment. For example, I prefer to buy books on Amazon rather than visit a bookshop. I can search a wider variety of books, some quite rare, and make my purchase at any time of the day or night. Then it arrives in a box, safely and reliably. If anything does go wrong they never quibble.

Price has actually relatively little to do with it. It's more about choice and convenience, provide of course that the price is equitable.

What is the solution for the problems of store chains like Jessops?

It is all down to overheads as John says!........I worked in the clothing trade for many years,in a small independant shop in a small market town!.......Rates even 20 years ago crippled many buisnesses, I hate to think what they are now,along with wages,electricity and the required stock levels ,it was very difficult......When pricing stock we doubled the cost price then added the vat to give us a retail price,yet at the end of the day with all costs deducted we made 2.5% profit!...The growing number of town centre retail shops closing down, along with the increase in charity shops shows just how bad our present financial situation is!

I think the biggest problem with bricks & mortar model is if I travel into town to purchase a camera, I expect to be able to handle it, play with it, get some advise & then purchase it. Unfortuantely most of the camera stores, in fact all of my local camera stores do not stock Pentax equipment, they don't carry much Canon or Nikon too... they can order it for me which will take 3 to 5 days, great!!!! I recently asked my local independant camera shop if they could get me a 50-135mm DA*. Oh the look on the guys face, I might as well have been speaking swaheelee, sure he could get me one, it would take a few days & cost £699!!!! Yeah right I don't mind paying a little more but £200 come on!!! I will just order it from SRS & get it next day cheaper than the stupid bricks & mortar store can do it.

So the answer is to actually carry some stock, then you might just sell something & make some money.

I went into jacobs in Hull whilst visiting & the amount of stock they had in was incredible & guess what??? I bought something, I also got to play with the Tamron 70-200mm 2.8 ok it was a Nikon fit but they could get me a Pentax in next day & price match, now that is service.

I recently went into Jessops to see if they had a Tamron 70-200mm 2.8 in the guy in the shop pointed me to a Tamron 70-300 for £79 I said you do understand what I asked for??? I got a blank expression. I said you do realise how much a 70-200mm 2.8 lens is going to cost??? He just shrugged his shoulders, he had no idea what I was talking about!!! They deserve to shut down, haven't bought anything from their store for a long long long time.

Jessops Lakeside Thurrock didn't even have any Jessops 7x5" Inkjet paper;they had only 6x4" or A4.

Unfortunately Jessops lost the plot a while ago, they've turned into the Dixons of the Photography world....large shops, little stock & staff who know virtually nothing about the products they sell, a recipe for disaster if ever I saw one...

Many "online retailers" are actually similiar type high street shops so I don't see why Jessops can't compete with some pricing, what would make a massive difference to shop sales though is knowledgeable staff...if you think you're receiving great service then you may well pay a higher price, if the service is poor you may aswell buy online

like many British retailers these days jessops seem to think the answer is just to employ un-interested, cheap and untrained staff...big mistake !!

(rant over)


simon

A bit off-topic, but our local PC World have just revamped, and it's just like simonkit says: "large shops, little stock & staff who know virtually nothing about the products they sell, a recipe for disaster if ever I saw one...". I suspect this is a reaction to BestBuy about to launch over here.
The last time I visited a Jessops, the store I visited didn't even stock Pentax at all. London Camera Exchange seems to be going the same way (in Reading at least). Tough times for the bricks and mortar guys.
The best in my area seems to be Park Camera (with a superb new showroom), SRS and Bywater (who seem to be the cheapest). The SRS store in Rayners Lane is amazing - a real treasure trove of 'old stuff' but able to supply the latest kit too.

Many retailers seem to think by paying minimum wage that is the end of their wages obligation, unfortunately this does not attract the most knowledgeable staff members. Neither is it good for attracting decent staff, a company paying minimum wage obviously does not care for its staff otherwise it would pay more & retention would be higher too.

My wife used to work in Currys when they used to pay commission, she made it her business to know products inside out & she was regurlarly one of the top sales people in her store. Now you could walk about in our local Currys on a Saturday for 3 hours and not have one member of staff approach you, they wehere all watching football last time I went in

SRS are a bricks and mortar store and they seem to be doing just fine.

The thing is, even if Chris was 10% more expensive than the competition I'd still go to him over the likes of Jessops. I know in SRS I will get helpful and reliable advice from a person who knows their wares, the fact that he's usually cheaper to boot is just a fringe benefit (if a very welcome one! keep it up Chris and co!)

good riddance, jessops are canon and nikon (and now probably sony) lovers, and don't stock enough pentax for my liking.

Oooh...nearly got me started again...PCworld, even worse than Jessops infact the worse set of stores I've ever been in....don't deserve any business...I'll have to stop there or ...

Simon

Don't forget to have a rant about Tescos, Currys and any others who are destroying knowledgeable camera outlets!!!