Thoughts on K3 prices.

What do people think will happen to K3 prices after Christmas? Are they likely to drop closer to the competition (if there is any ?
Or is it likely the PX offer will go and there will be a Ricoh cashback scheme. Any thoughts welcome.

Dave, with regard to K3 prices, I guess it will depend on Ricoh's pre Christmas sales targets as to wether the price will fall.

How much further room retailers have to provide discounts I don't know.

Too high for me at the moment, I would only consider buying when they get around the £800 mark.

I'm with Snappy on this, around £800 it's interesting and comparable price wise with Canon 70d and Nikon 7100d which I know we all don't see as direct competitors but will be by people not tied in with lenses.
There is only one way the price goes on these so whether it is January or March 2014 it's going to hit this sort of price in my opinion.

I would expect the PX trade-in to disappear after christmas as this was probably a sales gimmick all along. The body would have been built to a price point which was/is likely to have been £999 here in the UK. £999 will probably be the 'normal' body only price after christmas and is likely to drop to say £949 by easter..after that...who knows?

Interestingly, if the £ continues to strengthen against most other major currencies like it has been for the past couple of months, then UK retailers risk losing sales to overseas dealers, which may hasten a drop in the 'official' price sooner rather than later.

On a general note though, people don't have a lot of money swilling around like they may once have had and nobody makes any money in interest any more...so, unless there is another 'PPI scandal' waiting in the wings (paid for by taxpayer owned banks..i.e the taxpayer) then hard to see where the money is going to come from, which ultimately may mean a bigger drop in the price sooner rather than later or maybe a reduction in competition if Pentax, Sony or Olympus pulled out of the camera market altogether due to insufficient revenue.

On a less expensive level I'm pondering my next move with regard to the K30. I really want it to reduce to £400 with 18-55WR otherwise i think i'll wait another year and get the K50 hopefully for that sort of price in 12 months time, although the way things are going in Japan I may end up ditching a new camera and buying a geiger counter instead!

I don't think it will be January.

If the price comes down by £100 to £999, but the cashback offer disappears, that's only a tiny decrease in reality.

I suppose sales will dip after Xmas, but enough to persuade Ricoh to cut the price by a quarter?

Hmm.

My 1960's SV and Spotmatic 1, my 1973 Spotmatic Fmy 1980's ME Super, MX and LXand 2006 K10Dare still going strong ---

It took the K-5II approx 12 months to drop 25% in price and that was released around the same time of the year if I remember correctly.

I am expecting to buy one this time next year.

Here is a K-5II price chart for the last year:

Pentax seem to keep their prices high, the competition does not seem to affect the, I guess because the D7100 has already sagged a bit in it's lifetime and the K3 is still new. I think it took nearly a year for my K5 to drop to £800, which pretty much confirms the chart above. The K5IIs is still selling around that mark, I still think it is being held high (not just here in the UK), so not sure why they would discount the K3 too soon.

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As you say, £999 is the real price now as you can trade something worthless to get that. I don't see any price unless below £999 as any sort of real drop in price.

I think we are missing the point. Price is determined by demand, if everyone on this forum holds off long enough it may drop faster than we think.......not that we want to put RICOH out of business of course.

Crikey - I hope Ricoh are selling to more than the membership on here or we are all in trouble!

I think the price will go up as the offers will disappear. The camera will then take 4 months or more to significantly drop in price.

Demand is part of the equation but you are also dealing with product life cycle and also currency fluctuations. Most pentax dslr have been priced similart o the k-5 chart above. With new models being released on a 12 monthly cycle i wouldnt expect a price cut until April. Nearly every model released in recent years has had good intro offers and then nothing...