2. Christian Sandström holds a PhD from Chalmers
University of Technology, Sweden. He writes and speaks
about disruptive innovation and technological change.
66. … They provided service to their customers
and were usually skilled in the art of
photography and at repairing cameras.
67.
68.
69. I found the following story
and photo on Flickr:
70.
71. “I bought a new Pentax K10 and Mom gave me Dad's
old K1000 and lenses just before we went on
vacation. When I arrived in Ottawa I found there was
an incompatibility with the telephoto and the K10. I
happened to wander past the Camera Trading
Company and stopped in. Thomas was able to figure
out the problem and came up with a solution, at no
charge. Thanks Thomas.“
72.
73. You would
never go to
Best Buy
or Wal Mart
and ask
the staff
for help
with your
Pentax.
74. However, with the rise of digital imaging,
Thomas and his peers throughout the world
have lost ground to Best Buy and the other
super stores for consumer electronics.
75. Let’s go through the different
sources of revenues and see
how they were destroyed by
digital imaging.
77. With the shift to
digital imaging,
camera sales
exploded and the
big retailers could
sell huge volumes.
78. Since new models
are introduced at a
much higher pace
when an industry
is digital, it was
hard for the small
dealers to reach
sufficient
economies of
scale.
92. Maybe you have asked
someone to repair your SLR,
but unless it’s a really
expensive one you would
most likely regard it as a
reason to buy a new one.
95. Digital products decrease rapidly in
price since new and better models
tend to be launched at a high pace.
96. At the same
time, wages in
many countries
are very high in
relation to
these goods.
This means that
consulting
someone to fix
your camera
would cost a lot
in relation to
what the
camera costs.
97.
98. This is the
case with all
consumer
electronics.
Back in 2003
I had this
Nokia phone.
99. It got ill after
a rainstorm,
so I went to
the store and
asked if it
was possible
to repair it.
100. They wanted
300 SEK for
checking if
this was
possible, and
if so, this
would cost
me 1200
SEK.
101. For that
amount of
money I
could buy a
new, much
better phone.
118. Many people
at different
photo forums
have
complained
about the low
level of
knowledge at
Ritz and Wolf.
119. These stores were most likely aware of
this, but were stuck in a vicious cycle.
120. Dropping film sales, price
competition from big retailers
and a reduced need for
reparation – all these factors
contributed to the fall of camera
stores around the world.