Sony decided to close their online store on August 28. Full info can be read here: store.sony.com. All preorders will be fulfilled but from August 28 they will no more sell Sony products on their online site. I am yet not 100% sure but I also heard the same thing could happen in Sony European Stores soon too.
The reason for that is that Sony changed their sales strategy. They made big partnerships with major retailers and they feel it’s best for them to sell the products through them. I am not sure if that is a wise decision. But I certainly am not a marketing guy.
64 Responses
More stock for B&H pre-orders.
Good decision. I can’t remember when was the last time I ordered anything from Sony online store. I usually good straight to amazon.
Definitly a good decision, as Sony Stores never updated their prices since the release of their products. For instance, the SEL1670Z is still at 999 euros on the sites !!!! With such price, they can afford some price tags mistakes like a few weeks ago with the Sony A7R
I think its a bad decision, since i purchased my a6000 through the online store and the lady that took my order threw in an extra battery, a dedicated wall charger and three 32gb class 10 memory cards… I have never been able to sweet talk a brick and mortar store into giving me extras like that!
Whats wrong with buying from Amazon, BHPhotoVideo, Adorama and the like? There are plenty of deals on those sites as well.
The way I see it, good riddance! Throw in your best efforts into your primary site, which has plenty of issues, as well as improve marketing over conventional sources, like TV, Internet and billboard advertisement.
No problem. The Sony store is always more expensive than anyone regarding camera equipment. Their service was good and promotions were good though.
Not necessarily true. Depends on the country, model etc. Also, what happens with the student discount program, for example?
Dumb, personally I use it frequently and there is no risk for Sony in selling their own products directly.
The risk is probably the high costs associated with the store operation vs sale volume.
If they ran their online operation efficiently, it should be profitable. It doesn’t take much investment to sell direct.
If you are in USA, you might want to explore B&H. Beats buying from Sony store, as you get more options and better prices.
This is not entirely true. I got an A6000 from Sony last year at $450 when it was $650(or whatever the retail was the the time) at B&H. It also included a Sony case and 64GB card. Sony frequently has big discounts on their products randomly.
I find the prices are nearly always identical (aside from the occasional package deal) and I get a 10% corporate discount at Sony through my employer, so this sucks for me. 🙁
Sony is making smart moves to cut expensive load-barring distractions and focus their resources on their strengths. Others are far better at retail than Sony ever was, on-line and/or off. Expect to see more changes in the coming months.
IMO it’s a good decision, their website is full of mistakes !
FE lenses category doesn’t include all FE lenses.
Alpha and NEX accessories are mixed up.
Better close it and save people from getting everything wrong
Sony past and present marketing sucks.
They have no major retail presence.
A major change is desperately needed, and they cannot hope to seriosly challenge Canikon dominance without a much more substantial retail presence.
They still need a website to highlight thier products and customer support, but they do not really need to sell direct to the public as this would be a very small portion of thier sales if a strong retail presence can be achieved.
I think Sony needs to partner with stores like Costco and Sam’s Club to have their cameras on display. Would sell a lot more because currently most everyday people don’t even know much about Sony cameras.
Most of the time when people ask me what camera I am using, I tell them Sony and they tell me they did not think Sony made cameras anymore.
I often meet people in out of the way locations, parks, or zoos…so these are the average everyday consumers, not experienced photographers.
But many many people that walk up to me think Sony went put of the photography business because they have never seen a Sony camera for sale.
Except for point and shoot cameras no store that I have been in has Sony cameras.
I have also almost never seen advertising specifically for high end Sony cameras…the few Sony ads I have seen are..buy Sony products but do not mention specific products.
When most of America thinks Sony no longer makes cameras something is drastically wrong with Sony marketing.
Sony needs to advertise…but advertise specific products…not a generic add to buy Sony because the problem is people do not know what Sony makes.
and here in Guangzhou, China where I am based, you can see sony billboards and posters at almost every corner and at random bus stops everywhere… and I’m talking about just the good stuff inc the new a7r11 as the headliner model. I was even surprised to see my billionaire mate who’s a well known Leica lover buy his second sony camera this week haha.. also helps I guess that Sony has a super store with showroom and repair centre here in this city, which is the main reason I’ll be buying my next batch of cams from sony and not the others who do not have any support anywhere close 🙂 the service i got was done perfectly and fast and i don’t even speak the local language here.
In the US Canon rules with Nikon in second place.
Sony seems to have given up on the US camera market.
The a7rii…with the ability to efficeiently utilize Canon and Nikon lenses….finally has the potential to take some of that market share.
The a7rii should be specifically and agressively promoted here, with particular emphasis on its ability to effectively use Canikon lenses.
If , as seems to be the case, Sony does not understand the US market they should find someone that does understand the market to help them.
Canada is the exact opposite, you have to order anything worth more than $400 online, bestbuy maybe carries a few cheap bodies and lens. If they ever shut down the Canadian online store, there would be literally NO Sony presence up here, and with the current dollar purchasing from the US doesn’t make any sense. lets hope they bring their full line up of products into best buy, that way at least you could have the managers bring a product in for you to look at and test before you buy it. That’s the power of the big box stores that is missing right now.
They already do. But Costco/Sam’s Club only sells low-end cameras from anyone. (It seems like Sony is slowly discontinuing the A3000 – it was on massive clearance in USA B&M stores a few months ago and hasn’t been since since. Maybe they had a successor planned but it got delayed?)
This doesn’t affect the camera division too much as they had plenty of availability through Amazon, B&H, etc. – all the major outlets.
It represents the death of Sony Mobile though – the Sony store is the ONLY place you can get many of their products.
I recently saw an article that Sony is closing/has closed most of its retail shops and will concentrate on “sony experience” stores within established retailers. So we may see a bigger sony camera presence in stores like Best Buy, Costco, etc.
I am lucky that one of the two Sony stores still open is close to me.
Sony now has a really bad name after the hacking scandal. Why do they let people associate the name with the movie studio. Probably folks remember Minolta as a camera company more than Sony.
US are owned by Canon and Nikon, but in Asia you see more Nex cameras than Canikon put together. Also you begin to see a lot of A7 as a walk around camera on tourist and amateurs neck.
On a recent vacation I see mostly people using smartphones to take pictures. Very rarely interchangeable lens camera.
I went to one of the largest acquariums in New England today. Mostly cell phones or old rebels. Absolutely nothing above Walmart level fair. Kind of sad.
I saw the same even when on a cruise. Very few with SLR.
I went to a car show about 2 months ago- I did see quite a lot of SLR’s but guess what? It was mostly older people over 40. Even then, most of them where shooting the lower end gear as well. People just don’t want to take out the big bulky cameras.
And frankly, I can totally relate. When not specifically doing pro or creative work, I rarely take out the beast anymore. I’ll either take the a6000 or just rely on my iPhone.
That is another story.
Sony’s US website has a lot of major ‘mistakes’ on it. As an example they’ve been marketing 11+7 bit cameras as 14 bit for several years now. Guess that’s why there is finally a class action lawsuit forming for US purchasers of Sony’s ’14 bit’ cameras.
Much like you’ve been promoting yourself as a credible source on just about anything
that is because when online store set wrong prices, immediately A7r and Zeiss lenses are sold out! lol…
Sony is cleaning house to make more profit!!!
Where I live, no store carries the A7rxx. But I can go into the Sony store and try it out (when it is in stock). I hope to get to play with it before they close.
Sony abandoning enthusiasts to support Pro Services better.
BbWwAaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!
“But I certainly am not a marketing guy.”
Actually you run one of the best sites on the net and you could teach Sony a thing or two about marketing.
Where is my A7R for 199.99, Sony??
Store-Mount is dead! I knew it, without the support for 18bit currency it is no surprise.
Sony is closing the online store to open up a products page and links to buy products from retailers.
Sony had one of the worst website designs EVER! First, it was oriented towards direct push to placing item in basket for order – forget research and comparison. In keeping with research, many times their entire line would not be there (pro video in particular), or if it was, difficult to back out to look at other models in the line. Finally want to buy an accessory? No dedicated and sortable/searchable accessory section. First choose the camera, then wind through that page to find accessories for that camera. But then, page after page of randomly scattered accessories until you finally found the battery – or worse, found that it wasn’t there. That happened when trying to research research a the difference between the LE-A4 and LE–A3 adapters, only to find that the LE-A3 was not listed. Also, why were flashes scattered among the accessories rather than having their own dedicated section?
It’s called efficiency when running business in competitive way. In nowadays selling product is not easy as it use to be and so in my humble opinion I think that Sony is on right path.
Sony can get focus on innovation and technical aspect of their product which means that buyer can more benefit from it.
Let’s leave sale to B&H Photo and Adorama which are by the way supper suppliers.
Are they also planning to close their retail stores in the US??
My local Sony Store is at the South Coast Plaza, in Costa Mesa, CA. That’s a lot closer than New York City.
Given that the 28/2 is currently £419 in the Sony online store and £293 on Amazon, I think I can see the problem…
Olympus can do it. Fuji can do it. Nikon and Canon suck at it- but they can do it. Why not you Sony? Good luck selling A mount gear when it isn’t even in stores and now- you wouldn’t even know it existed unless you typed it in a google search engine. Pfft.
It seems like Sony’s direct marketing strategy is proving to be not cost effective. What shame. Never mind, I find normal high street dealers down our way are proving quite price savy these days, often beating ebay dealer prices. Good for them. It keeps us punters interested in high st. outlets as I for one like to get hands on with a product before I buy it and it is much, much less hassle to go back to a high st. store if there is a problem, something that’s a real pain if you have to post the item back to whence it came.
How much savings can getting rid of an online store give them ? Also, gives them a platform to show case products on their own turf without seeing Canon/Nikon splashed everywhere.
Probably more economical to shutdown the physical stores. I guess those are next.
Already gone in most places I think.
shutting down an online store doesn’t mean removing their web presence. they will still have a site to showcase their products!
You have to also factor in all of the inventory that they must hold for potential online sales. If you run inventory inefficiently then a online store can be a cash flow problem. My guess is that sales were never at a consistent level and they ended up holding too much inventory over time, they decided they could better judge inventory levels at a store level where they could better judge customer demographics than online.
Physical stores have been shut down year or two ago.
This might be good. Sony’s US web site was all about selling it took you to the store. Never to any of the good content about the products like the A77m2 stuff that is on the global store. Then there was the sudden price problems. I am assuming they worked out the cost of rebuilding the store from the ground up, vs just selling via Amazon etc. and it was a bad move. Better to use retailers who know what they are doing and redo the site to MARKET the products with good info. Of course they could still have a bad site.. but the Us site was just a big shopping cart with often poor or out dated info.
I agree SAR manager could not be a sales guy but surely he is on of the most expert marketing man. May be he is not so aware of it or he doesn’t want to appear this way…
sony is know in Europe to have crappy after sale service.
Sony is in the Consumer Electronics business. If you break it you don’t repair it—you just buy a new one. A $548.00 (B&H) a6000 body is a throw-away item, replacing isn’t much more costly than repair.
The real question is how will they treat an a7RII owner?? $3198.00 (B&H body only) is not a throw-away camera for most people.
in Europe that is 3500EUR that is about 3800 USD. actually the price is blown up. I got an deal from a reseller for 2950 euro, but he told me, he is not allowed to sell for that rice.
I had to send my A99 in out of warranty to the one repair company they use in the US, Precision Camera. Sony actually ended up replacing it because PC couldn’t get the parts (for a common SteadyShot error that just appeared, no physical damage on a camera without much use), and stopped answering their phone and emails. It took almost a month to get a replacement camera, but if not for Sony’s service reps I’d still be waiting. Precision Camera has terrible Yelp ratings, btw. I’d be afraid to buy a more expensive camera now that I know where it has to go for repair, good luck even getting it back.
had the same issue, but with sony service in Luxembourg. I had a Vaio in warranty 2 years and left it at Sony service center. they said the repair will take 3 weeks. After 3 weeks I went back just to find out they did not even send it for repair. They demanded I pay 170 euro or I will not see the laptop again. So took me another month to get my stuff back, without paying 170 euro. Their argument was (yes you have it in guarantee) but you must proof that the logic board was badly manufactured. I wrote email, to head of Sony service in Netherlands and yes they repaired it for free. couple monts later my guarantee was finished and the bloody Vaio died. I was to tired to go into it again. Thats why I buy APPLE now. Why Apple doesn’t build cameras? Imagine. Better processor speed, faster UI, Touchscreen, Batery life. 300 pictures?? well with apple we talk 1000s
I love Sony, but yes, Apple in a heartbeat. I’m still mad the cameras on the iPhones are so lame compared to their competition. I carry my RX100 III around with me everywhere so if I really do need a good photo of something I’m ready. The repair center in the US promised me a 5 day turnaround, ha! I sent an Alpha 65 (that the strap broke on and it broke the battery door) in for an out of warranty repair to a different location last year (Sony says ‘they’re out of business now’) and got it back in three weeks, for almost the cost of buying another A65 *sigh*. But it was repaired correctly, at least. Precision Camera is a joke.
Online retail is pretty tough now given that consumers (at least in the US) expect free shipping (which cuts the sellers margins) and many times expect some sort of price matching. There is really no customer loyalty in online sales, people search for the lowest price so it’d be best for Sony to just get out the game and let the other online marketplaces hold their inventory and sell their product. The Sony Site will still be there to showcase all the latest offerings.
There prices were too high, so why would you buy from Sony online?!
Tin-foil-hat theory: Not having their own store will allow them to phase out their A-mount lens stock without much notice. If they suddenly just stopped stocking A-mount lenses on their own website, it’d be immediately noticeable. However, if they don’t sell anything, then any lens selling choices can be blamed on other distributors. B&H, for example, could not stock anything other than the new SSMII lenses because “the other lenses don’t sell”. So if B&H (and other retailers) doesn’t sell it, and Sony no longer sells it, the lens is effectively dead. Then, when they can report that A-mount lens sales are basically nil, they can trot out justification for killing the A-mount camera as a result.
In my country, NL, they stopped the student discounts around March 2015. I didn’t get the reason from Sony or online student partners, but I got some good deals on the Sony A7 kit, 35mm and 55mm ZEISS from 2014-2015, hundreds of euros below normal prices.