shop local?

Bought my K20 from my local seller last week.
He was £20 more expensive than SRS and other online dealers; but then he did spend 30 minutes with me deciding which lens to get, then He filled out the cashback form for me.
Just wondering how many others shop local?
If not, why not?
Dave.

Lucky you!
I wish I could shop locally, but there are no camera shops near me that stock Pentax, even though one of them is listed as a Pentax dealer by Pentax NL . They won't even order stuff for me, just try to flog me Canon or Nikon or Sony instead.

I see no sense in my driving for an hour or more to one of the camera shops which does stock Pentax just to buy a camera, or a lens, if I can have it delivered for less than the petrol money.
The last lens I bought from SRS because even with the postage from the UK they were more than €100 cheaper than I could find it here.

I shop local and luckely they are cheap (getting some extra discount) and have a good service. They don't stock a lot of Pentax but when you want to try out some lenses they just order them for you and they have it 2 days later for you to play with them so I'm quite happy
Just have bought a Cokin Z-pro set with 3 GND filters for €60,- at them who can compete against that

edit: Just readed Gwyn's comment and it looks like I'm lucky, is there really nothing in Amersfoort?

No Pentax dealers within travelling distance from me, so I have no choice but to buy everything online. My own fault for "going bush" I suppose. No lens review in the world can tell you what an item feels like, and on more occasions than I care to count my purchase has been the wrong one

I bought my K20D from a local dealer, Devon Camera Centre in Exeter. Was going to order from SRS but Devon Camera are also a Pentax Pro centre so though I would support a local trader.

Would love to shop local but there are no Pentax dealers in the whole of Scotland, and not even many good photography shops....I am not counting Jessops in this as the no longer stock Pentax and are just a "box" seller.

I tried to buy localy when I got my K200d.

The problem was the two Pentax dealers I know (and use) couldn't get me the body and Mk2 lens, they were being sent the older Mk1 lenses by 20-20 who used to import Pentax.

To match the on line prices they said they would have had to sell me my body/lens combo at a loss of £100! Although the Mk2 lens was standard OUTSIDE the UK!!!

Now Pentax are dealing directly with the shops (no middle man) the prices are getting better.

I'll see what they're like this time next year when the new bodies are available.

Until then I try to shop local, but can't always afford to!

Stefan, no there really is nothing in Amersfoort or Hilversum. My local camera shop in Soest is listed as a Pentax dealer but refuses to help me at all, he thinks I am mad to have bought Pentax and makes no bones about saying so. Great customer service .

There is a shop in Utrecht which sell Pentax but they are pretty useless in my experience, and that is getting to be beyond local as far as I'm concerned. It means I have to take at least a half day out just for that and I can just as easily go to K-E in that time.

So if I want to play and hope for some reasonable advice it is either a trip to Amsterdam, Kapelle a/d Ijssel, Den Ham or Urk.

So I'll stick to internet shopping and especially to SRS. I have the advantage of having family in the UK whom I visit occasionally so unless it is something I desperately want (like the 50-135*) then I can have my order sent to a relative for me to pick up when I visit them.

Hello Dave,

I drove to Park Cameras to purchase my K20D.

I was unable to buy locally, and as I wanted a good look at the camera before purchase, it meant driving from Essex To West Sussex

Well the simple answer is I would shop locally if I could afford to, and there was a decent dealer who knew what they were talking about!
Sadly like most things these days it’s gone out to retail outlets/hyper markets that have no hands on experience.

You'd have been better off driving to Watford

There's CameraWorld in Chelmsford.... but I guess for Pentax you have to go to the London Branch...

Talens? I've been to the one in Delft and it's not bad....my local is HAFO (which is now expensive). But Combi in Den Haag has a nice ME Super with 50mm f1.4 and motorwind for EUR 75.. From time to time I go past Filipo in Leiderdorp to see if the EUR 849 K10D is still there

Is there a good shop in Dordrecht? it's a good excuse to go there on the train and photograph the harbour and the Dom

No, they have a selection of Pentax stuff at Chelmsford, including (last week) a K20D, K200D, a 77mm Limited (which was a surprise!), and a few secondhand lenses. Hopefully they might be having a 'Pentax Day' soon.

Dan