Lens price fixing? No package deals to be had anywhere!

Package deals on high end gear like the lenses bought have always been pretty rare.  Even with consumer grade cameras and lenses you usually have to buy a body as part of the package.

MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) is to blame for all the prices being the same.  If you are a camera store that wants to carry Olympus products you have to play buy their rules and that includes letting them set the minimum price.  I have read people that claim this is just the minimum advertised price and you can negotiate a better deal but without a "click here to bicker over price" button on their websites if you order online the MAP price is what you pay.

At least prices are low now due to the exchange rates.  I am pretty sure that 12-40 you bought was close to $1000 not that long ago.

Dave Lively wrote:

Package deals on high end gear like the lenses bought have always been pretty rare. Even with consumer grade cameras and lenses you usually have to buy a body as part of the package.

When stores were trying to get through their E-M5 stock, there were bundles that included various non-kit lenses (like the 17mm or 45mm F/1.8), although the only bundles involving the "pro" lenses were the (presumably) Olympus-sanctioned "elite" kits.

MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) is to blame for all the prices being the same. If you are a camera store that wants to carry Olympus products you have to play buy their rules and that includes letting them set the minimum price.

That sounds like a highly dubious, if not technically illegal, practice.

Meanwhile, here in Norway, one of the major retailers (let us call them "JP") clearly tracks the price of the other (let us call them "SP") and then lists any products that the latter has just discounted for 1 NOK less, obviously to get listed first in price aggregators and the like.

(Interestingly, having hiked their prices for the Sigma lenses back to the higher level - following their competitor closely, of course - those lenses still sit at the position in JP's price-sorted list of products that they would have if the price was still discounted, which is either a bug in their site software or reveals some kind of special price used for sorting, perhaps used to promote products. Or maybe it does indicate a willingness to haggle. )

I have read people that claim this is just the minimum advertised price and you can negotiate a better deal but without a "click here to bicker over price" button on their websites if you order online the MAP price is what you pay.

At least prices are low now due to the exchange rates. I am pretty sure that 12-40 you bought was close to $1000 not that long ago.

If your currency is strong and if the retailers don't intend to soak up the benefits, I guess you can get some good prices. Maybe there are benefits to going to old-fashioned stores after all. Indeed, I recently found that to be the case.

It actually is price-fixing (a form of vertical price-fixing called resale price maintenance).  In 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in a 5-4 vote down party lines) that these minimum advertised pricing restraints are not per se illegal under antitrust law, and so the use of these has become ubiquitous.  Now every camera manufacturer controls the minimum price at which retailers can sell camera gear.  As a result prices in the U.S. for camera gear are much higher than in Asia, despite the huge devaluation of the yen and the lack of any value-added taxes as in Europe.

However, the SC opinion was in the context of a single boutique leather apparel company wanting to control its prices in a sea of competitors, not an entire industry of conglomerates (Canon/Nikon/Sony/Olympus/Panasonic/Fuji/Ricoh/Samsung) all fixing prices.  One of the dangers the SC majority opinion acknowledged if an entire industry uses vertical price-fixing, is that it can become a horizontal price-fixing scheme (e.g. a manufacturer cartel).

Olympus USA would have you believe you're getting a bargain on the E-M1 because it's $100 off ($1200) and the 12-40 PRO is $200 off ($800).  But contrast that in Japan - as an American tourist you can walk into a big camera store in Tokyo or Osaka (Yodobashi/Bic Camera) today with your passport and Visa card, and get the E-M1/12-40 PRO for under $1300 USD with a multi-year Japanese warranty.  You're essentially paying a 50% premium largely due to these policies.

dkadc wrote:

I have been shooting my EM-5 and EM-1 soon after each body was released. Today I ordered the 12-40 pro, 40-150 pro and 1.4x teleconverter, plus a B+W MRC UV Haze filter for each lens. I was surprised it was impossible to find any kind of a package deal anywhere. I would have been willing to get another EM-1 body (or an EM-5 II) as part of a package if I could find one, but I could find no such thing online anywhere.

The best prices were on Olympus's own web site and Amazon.com at $799, $1299 and $349. I went with Amazon because of the faster shipping with my Amazon Prime account. It just seems strange that nobody beats the manufacturers price!

I'm shooting a dance event this weekend. Its one I have shot before, and my old adapted 14-54 II struggled on the long end at f3.5 to give me enough light, and lets not even talk about longer lenses like my 70-300. Between aperture and focus issues, it was a non-starter. The best results were with my dad's old Nikon 105mm f/2.5. While I could focus it easily its not a zoom, so I'm quite stoked to be getting the 40-150 and can't wait to use it!

Now I just have to convince myself to part with my 4/3 bodies and my 14-54II, 18-180, 70-300, 24mm 1.8, 30mm 1.4 and all the kit lenses I have collected. Sadly, dead camera mounts mean lenses aren't worth much.

There are deals online right now for an em5 mark II and the 12-40 together for 1400 usd. Check ebay, the ones i saw were from Australia

RaymondR wrote:

MAP is not resale price maintenance. It is a vertical restraint, just not a price fixing one. RPM means the price at which the retailer can SELL is fixed. Conversely, MAP relates only to the price which the retailer can ADVERTISE. It may or may not have an anticompetitive effect, but it is important to be precise here because RPM and MAP are different. Neither is per se illegal anymore but both can still be illegal under the rule of reason applied in antitrust cases. It would likely be a lot harder to justify an RPM policy than a MAP policy. I am not aware of any camera manufacturer that has an RPM policy; many have MAP policies.

A couple things:

• MAP is a form of RPM, not a distinct thing. Your use of RPM is probably referring to unilateral pricing policy (UPP) which is when a retailer is prohibited from selling below a certain price even in in-person transactions.
• The distinction between MAP and UPP is becoming irrelevant because an increasing percentage of sales are done online, and even under MAP retailers are now prohibited from using coupons, "add to cart for lower price", or other means to sell below a minimum price. Retailers cannot even offer to sell at a lower price via e-mail. They're essentially only allowed to negotiate in person or over the phone, and many of them won't even do that as a matter of store policy or in fear of inadvertently stepping on manufacturer policies and getting their supply cut off.

Prices fluctuate almost daily - as you can see from the following, there are £250 ($400) overnight swings:

UK 40-150 pricing

Also variations in Amazon prices between countries:

For example - 7-14/2.8

UK - £999 (€1400)

DE - €1299

FR - €1235

ES - €1699 (last week €1185!!)

http://www.panoramio.com/user/50820