Amazon US has the Panasonic GF1
In this months we noticed how european stores do have Panasonic stuff always in Stock and US stores are often out of stock. Maybe because of the strong Euro Panasonic preferrs to fill the european market first? We also noticed that US stores do only list the black GF1. In european stores you can find the black-white-red-silver GF1!
Amazon Germany (you only miss the red GF1)
It is a bit frustrating for US buyers!
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The E-P2 is available for preorder at Amazon UK
10 Responses
I’m european and i really would prefer to pay less…because when you get 800$ slr, it’s 800€ minimum in europe… :-s…disgusting…
US buyers don’t get frustrated when they buy photographic stuff such as cameras and lenses about 30% cheaper than europeans do.
price is the answer…
probably profit margins, just compare the prices.
Iwert
I really wanna know too…. I’ve been eying for the GF1+20/1.7 for months..and no one carries it…why??? I really don’t understand. Pana can make great sales here in the US. it somehow kinda force the ppl on the fence to turn to other brands.
anyway, I’m still waiting, patiently!
😀
Yes you make sense: the prices in Europe are in EUR, the prices in the U.S. are in USD, but the figures are the same!
So assuming that the cameras for those markets are made in the same location, the profit on the cameras sold in Europe, will be massively higher!
Now why are things that way? Firstly maybe Europeans are just not very bothered by high prices, at least not as much as Americans would. And secondly, for some reason Panasonic have managed to obtain rather premium brand status in most European countries (especially in France), whereas in the U.S. they’re still considered average at best. Maybe that’s down to Panasonic having much better marketing management in Europe?
In any case, given the situation, if I were Panasonic I certainly would first and foremost make sure that my European customers could buy all the cameras they wanted, at those inflated prices! 😉
store in Japan
Black – in stock, Red : a few, White : none(stock in 5week. but all arrival of goods is reserved always.)
Hi Panasonic! Where are you from ??
Don’t be fooled. The Europe version has the limitation of video of up to 29.99 minutes for each recording due to the restriction of non-camcorder in Europe. This limitation and the high price in currency are the answer.
In addition, due to the fact that GF1 is a design-oriented model, and probably Panasonic has over-expected its sales volume in Europe and under-estimated the needs from American.
The situation is also true in the Asia Pacific region when GF1 always needs pre-orders in Hong Kong but highly stocked in Australia with exceptionally high price.
Frustration!!!
How hard can it be to make ample stock available everywhere in time for the holidays? This is a factory-built $900 product, not a handcrafted Italian supercar that takes months to build. And Christmas is the same date every year.
There are a ton of people here in the US and Canada who have been waiting way too long for this camera. We are still a continent of 350 million potential buyers. Eventually we will all go buy the EP-1/2 or something else. Panasonic is just kissing money goodbye.
Looking at this 2 years later, 2011, it appears the feeling was mutual. The US market didn’t really like those cameras after they exported. Too much noise even at lowish ISO, and the images take a huge of amount of USM for acceptable sharpness.
It appears that Olympus is going to lose it’s shirt again this year.
Build better cameras at a decent price, and put a viewfinder on them. Quit worrying about exchange rates. People have wised up and won’t buy crap at any price.