Jessops at it again!!

This makes Pentax sound like a girlie mag!

As for consumer demand, surely the consumer can only demand what's visible in a shop. When I enter a shop I look around, if I don't see what I want I won't ask, then I leave and take my money elsewhere.

Surely one or two bits of stock in a cabinet NOT dominated by canikony can't be too hard to do?
Just the sight of a body encourages me to ask further.

As mentioned, a high street without Jessops would be unforgivable, but that's what we thought about Woolworths.

I've said many times that there are some great people working for Jessops, knowing some of them as Sue used to be an Assistant Manager there. They made all their AM's redundant a while ago, which did not exactly endear them to us, but nonetheless they still don't deserve to be "bashed" in a way that is determined to find fault with everything they do!

They are losing a lot of money and can't afford to be everything to everybody at this time. It may be that the market has moved on from their style or indeed that they have strayed from the path, but either way they are not in the best of shape and no doubt doing what they can to correct that.

I know I sound like I'm bashing Jessops, I would really like to see them return to the ways of ten years ago.

But until the current 'we can only sell canikony' philosophy is abandoned I fear for their survival.

Lets face it, we can't afford to loose a retailer with such reach into the high street.

If they can actively sell enough Canon, Nikon, Sony product at the right price to encourage people to buy, they'll survive.

Adding the Pentax brand to their store front will not have much influence over their survival or demise. Other forces, mainly Joe Public deciding to hold on to his/her pennies to pay for heating etc., will have a bigger influence on their future.

I would still rather see them broken up and the high street returned to the independents. Jessops have never managed to improve on most of the independents they replaced. I dont think such monopolies are good for customers, or high streets, and they completely distort camera markets.

Effectively they make it impossible for small niche manufacturers to penetrate.

I have nothing against the managers and staff in individual stores, they are human like us all, but I do have a problem with the donkeys that run Jessops itself. Its about time they went the same way as Woolworths IMO. Jessops is not, and never was, a viable business model. (Hell they nearly went bankrupt during the greatest growth period ever in the camera industry!!).

I'm surprised by that comment. I wouldn't wish any business to go bankrupt whether Jessops, Woolworths or anyone else. It's not good for the high street, and certainly not good for the staff who lose their jobs.

Affected by other Online retailers' low prices sales ,jessops had to close 81 stores nationwide and cut 550 jobs last year.That left jessops with 234 stores.

Weird one from me too, I wouldn't be shooting Pentax if the Jessops store manager didn't recommend the K10D to me. Then after handling it, it felt so much better than the equivalent priced competition, that I walked out with one.

But.... since then, apart from an offer on the grip as I bought the body (£75 I think), I've never been back. Why not? For a specialised camera store, they are not specialised enough!

With 234 stores, it would probably involve a minimum of say £5 - £10 million pounds worth of stock, to have a decent Pentax showing in every store. So I can understand why if Sony are throwing money at them they decide that is the way to go.

It looks more and more like the business models of say SRS, Warehouse Express / Park cameras etc. is the way to go. One or two retail units which are also the warehouses for large online sales as well. All online businesses need premises of some kind, so why not combine them with a retail store?

Perhaps the only way for Jessops to survive would be to make it a lot smaller? We all want the independent, local, knowledgeable, well stocked, well priced friendly store, but you just cannot have that in a large national chain with uninterested staff on the minimum wage!

Yes, I think a smaller Jessops could be viable, but probably not more than 50 shops.

Sorry thats not what I said - I said the stores should be returned to independent ownership.

With the news that Officer Club and Zavvi has just gone bust it seems only a matter of time before jessops join the growing list of casualties.

Our high streets could soon be dominated by £1 shops, charity shops and bookies.

Heaven forbid that vision, lets hope we don't loose anymore retailers.

Even if one of them is Jessops.

I agree about most of the negative stuff about Jessops and pricing but they were offering a good price at the time I bought my K10D and it was in stock at a local branch. Sometimes it's all about timing ...

Not too far off topic I hope, but does anyone else miss the Jessops of old, when it was owned by the Jessop family? I really miss the 'Jessops List' that used to occupy half a dozen or more pages in the back of AP. It was so extensive and tightly packed, they even sold a little fresnel magnifying glass to read the list with In those days, they were very competitive in their pricing. I miss the Jessops of old

Hi Graham. I miss the Jessops of old, and the old style shops in general. The standard of camera shops has gone downhill. long gone are the days when you could walk into a shop and spend an hour talking to an assistant that new his/her stuff, and browse through all the used equipment. We used to have at least four in my area like that.

But no-one will pay a price that can support that sort of camera shop.