UK price increases are here :(

The K5 body seems to have increased by 100 quid, both at Park & SRS, the biggest UK dealers. Many lens prices seem to have increased massively at SRS too: the DA70, DA21, DA* 55, DA 17-70, DA 12-24...

The special edition silver DA70 is currently cheaper than the standard version.

Very disappointing. I can give up thinking about getting more limited lenses.

Just checked Jessops's limited range of Pentax lenses. No price increases there - DA 17-70mm is still £329.95, for example, so might be worth a look, especially if you have some Tesco Clubcard vouchers.

K5 body only went up £15 on Amazon so it's £715 at the moment

I, for one, would like SRS to tell us whether they've been specifically recently ordered as dealers to set them at these new higher prices (the MRRP thing) or whether they're doing this as a "market response" to the now lack of lower cost North American offers.

SRS are unlikely to be in a position to tell us what is really going on. I suspect the tactic used is the threat that a dealer under-cutting prices may find his supplies dry up and could lose his "insert brand name here" dealership. I've recently had this confirmed to me regarding another brand (not at SRS)!

But this isn't "price-fixing" of course

Well, maybe, although I'd have thought that they'd be delighted to confirm that this price hike was forced on them by an outside party rather than an opportunistic money grab because of what's going on. Any silence would be deafening.

Well I've noticed that the DA*60-250 from SRS on e-b has gone up from £939 to £1112 and it's £1,189 on the site (I think it was under £1K before). That's an 18% increase.

I'm glad I got the DA*300 when I did - just wish I could 'stock up' on the others on my 'wanted' list!!

Oh well.... it might make the price of the 560mm seem less expensive when it comes out.

Last time there was a big price increase in the UK, SRS scrupulously kept selling the lenses they had in stock at the old price until they had sold out. (I remember umming and aah-ing over their last DA*50-135 at £519. Somehow I restrained myself - which with hindsight was actually a mistake from a purely financial point of view.) Given that this was so, I imagine that a Pentax directive is dictating these increases. Very glad I invested in some Ltds over the past year or so now.

This abrupt price increase seems like a daft policy to me. Pentax could have encouraged pre-increase sales if they'd given more warning. This is what happened last time - SRS sold out their existing stock pretty swiftly as I recall. All this will do is make people delay their purchases, or lead them to invest in third party or s/h lenses.

This seems to be the strategy at SRS currently as I notice that the 21mm and 70mm Ltds have risen steeply in price but the 35mm 2.8 and the 40mm Ltds remain at their old price together with the 70mm Ltd - heaven alone knows what the latter might rise to if and when the current round of increases is applied. I am thankful that I have recently acquired the 15, 21and 70 Ltds as I might not have been quite so keen to do so now and I suspect that I might have stuck with my trusty Sigma 17 -70. I feel that increases of this size are rather disappointing and existing Pentax users may well feel rather let down and even disillusioned.

Sorry my post does not make sense! I meant to say that the 15mm Ltd ( not the 70mm) seems to be at its old ( but still rather high) price and I was speculating what that lens might rise to!

On the other side of the coin, I've wanted the BG-4 grip (K5) for some time, but at £205 in SRS it was more than I was willing to pay. It is now priced at £179 so I've bought one, arrived this morning!

I think the DA35 and 40 Ltds might be priced relatively low because if they were too high people would just opt for the DA35 and 40XS. The 15 has always been priced higher than the other DA Ltds in the UK - I suspect this might stay where it is. In the US, where it was much cheaper than in the UK, its price has gone up substantially.

I reckon Ricoh Pentax will come to their collective senses when sales of their equipment don't appear to shift off the shelves as quickly as they used to, and in the case of lenses, when they realise that the likes of Sigma, Tamron, etc are outselling Pentax-branded lenses on a massive scale. It might be worth hanging on a few months to find out if this is going to be the case.

The opposite could easily be the case with Tamron and Sigma. Declining sales of the Pentax brand lead to declining sales of third-party products for it and to fewer third-party products for it being made. What this move has probably done is refocus people's attitude: we've heard all the talk about the Ricoh takeover but now we are fixing our eyes firmly on what these guys are actually doing and on the products they are releasing, not on what their marketing department has been claiming and on rumours of rafts of new things just waiting in the wings. No more if.

This may well generate a reasonable level of sales in the short term.

As has been noted already some retailers have lenses at the "old prices", and at any given time there will be a fair number of people close(ish) to purchasing, forearmed with the knowledge of significant increases this may well help them bring forward their decisions. I have to admit I have behaved this way in the past

As for the longer term, it is unlikely that Pentax will price themselves out of the market - Nikon have been "adjusting prices" and Canon aren't a registered charity