- in a large shopping mall & spot a Blacks Camera shop. I go in & start looking around & a sales person come up & asks if I need any help. I said I don't see any micro four thirds cameras & his response was that he never heard of them. I eventually found a GF2 in a display case, called him over to see it & he said "Oh, I only know them as mirror-less cameras".
What you describe is by no means unique to more isolated parts of Canada. Everywhere we see the same thing. If you want to get technical or functional information at a camera shop anywhere in the world you need to choose your store with care and even choose the person you ask with some care too.
Here in the UK we have a declining number of 'real' camera shops and a range of places like Jessops and Comet/PC World where you need to know what you want, pick up the box and pay for it without asking any questions.
Part of this is down to the changing way in which photographic customers obtain information. More and more people look first to the internet for information and then for purchase. It is almost impossible for small brick and mortar stores to compete with this on price.
Where I live in a semi-rural part of the UK we still have a small local camera shop, and I try to patronise it whenever possible. Over the years I have got to know the two people who run it and know that I can trust their judgment. If they do not know the answer to any question they will admit this and offer suggestions on how to find out ranging from RTFM (Read The Fine Manual), to join the local camera club, to ask in a dpreview forum, to wait until the Panasonic rep is in here next Wednesday.
This local shop provides a good service to its local customers, and some of these customers are very undemanding. I have been waiting my turn in the queue to hear things like:
"I need to buy a camera for my daughter that is small and pink."
Talking to the shop owner when I was in there this week I learned something else that was news to me. The main camera importers in the UK are putting the squeeze on the smaller retail businesses. My local shop has recently lost direct supply from Canon and Leica UK because his turnover is too low despite being part of a buying group of smaller local businesses. He can still supply customers with Canon and Leica cameras, but has to go through intermediates to do this. Fortunately Panasonic still supplies him direct.
It is all too easy to blame the owners and operators of these smaller shops for their demise. It is much harder to look at our own purchasing patterns and the behaviour of global camera manufacturers.
