A Ritz camera salesperson writes in to give you the skinny on scanning, digital prints, and which memory cards are just a ripoff.
I have been working for Ritz Camera/Proex for about three years now and it’s really starting to get on my nerves, but I thought I’d share some of the ways they screw you over as a customer and potential employee.
1. The E.S.P. or Extended Service Plan- This plan is alright. You pay quite a bit for security. The only good thing about it is if you do drop your camera they will cover your negligence. Only problem is, is that depending on where you bring the camera in the U.S. most likely for any repair out of Ritz/Proex it will take about 2 months to get your camera back and thats the quickest.
2. Prices- We have price matching, but it has to be the exact same product, the other store must have it in stock, and we have to call the other store to make sure that the customer isn’t lying. Then we call a district manager and half the time they don’t answer so you stand there and stare at the customer until they leave and go buy it at the other store. Not to mention cameras are a much better deal online all the time, any time.
3. Memory Cards- They try and make us sell you “Ritz” memory cards before Sandisk or Panasonic. They are all the same. Ritz claims theirs are “faster,” but they are the EXACT SAME CARD. You’re already dishing out 300$ for a camera, get the cheapest card that will hold the most.
4. Products- As employees we are required to push at least 4 products on you. While I refuse to do it and stick close to the finishing lab, everyone else has to. Most of the time they will tell you that they are a certain price only to find when you get to the register that the price is higher. This is because you must have our Image Rewards Card.
5. Image Rewards Card- Claims it uses a system that collects “money back,” but I have yet to see that come up from frequent customers. For 16$ this lovely little piece of plastic can be yours. Unless you are doing actual 35mm film this card isn’t worth it. It literally takes pennies off digital prints. You have to do tons of digital prints in order to get your monies worth.
6. Prints- We have what is called Big Print You which is the “New Digital Standard!” It’s a bunch of crap. You are paying ten extra cents for half an inch of paper. It’s not worth it. Take the time and make 4×6′s. 4×6′s still fit in albums and frames. Big Print You fits in some, but you have a small selection.
7. Scanning- Scanning is 2.50$ per print. Ridiculous! Most of the time I don’t charge it and just say I forgot. Everyone else normally does it. 2.50 a scan, and you can only scan one at a time with a maximum of ten then the software makes to start another ten. It takes forever. By a cheap scanner and you’ll save a ton of money if you think you need to scan a bunch of photos.
8. Demo Cameras- We sell them to you and you don’t even know it. Everyone’s grubby hands have probably been on your camera. It’s probably been dropped at some point, not to mention the boxes we get shipments in from UPS look like they’ve been kicked all the way from the home office to our store. We sell demo cameras at no discount, we just clean them up and put them in a box. Then we are told to lie to you and tell you it’s brand new.
9. Employees- Be prepared for a job that offers no movements in pay. They have a company policy that allows you to take quizzes that your manager and service manager have to sign off on then give to your district manager that then gets you a small raise. Most of our employees have finished these, got them signed, and turned them in. We all still get 8$/hr. The district manager claims he “never got them.” I’ve heard this same excuse has been used with other stores too with different district managers. Also there are “Sales Incentives” that are supposed to be your commission. These are pennies and on like 5 things in the store. Most of the time it’s all taken away in taxes.
10. One Hour Photo- Yeah right. Half the time our machines break down because they are about as old as I am and the company is too cheap to fix them. So with the new “One Hour or It’s Free” deal we have now, we can just say that the machine is broke and that voids the deal. I’ll just give you your prints free. If there is a chance that our machine is working alright, in reality we can probably get your prints done in about 15-30 minutes unless you have a ton of them. Also ordering your prints online saves you time in a mall and the smell of fish that the printer gives off. So do that.
(AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
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No wonder they are disappearing from malls. I don’t know how they do any business. I get my digital prints from Target.
People still go to ritz? I thought that was a fairy tale, like people shopping at Radio Shack.
$8/hr for retail? I worked retail in college and the best you could hope for was $6/hr. Granted, it was a college town with a steady stream of potential employees, but at the time $8 would have been sweet.
@smitty1123: Federal minimum wage is $6.55/hr. Increasing to $7.25 in July 2009. In Oregon (where I live), minimum wage is $8.40 an hour.
I can vouch for #8. While shopping for my camera, I was poking at the demos at a Ritz Camera. After a few weeks of playing with different models and reading reviews, I settled on a Sony A100. The Ritz Camera only had one in stock, and it was the display model I was holding at that moment. I asked the salesman if they offered any discount because it is a floor model, and they did not. He offered to call around to other Ritz stores in the area, but I declined to wait. Instead I went home and bought it online for the same price bundled with several extra lenses and accessories. I usually prefer to buy local, but they aren’t going to retain any customers without simple incentives like open box discounts.
The Sony A100, by the way, is a wonderful camera. I say this somewhat tongue in cheek, after having just voted on Sony being worse than Google.
I don’t like how he says to buy the cheapest memory card that holds the most. Bull.
Some cards are just poorly made, and can result in lost data (I have had this happen).
Other cards aren’t fast enough for the video recording many cameras can do (I have had this problem as well).
Also some large cards can’t be read in some cameras, even if they are the same “type”. Such as the higher density SD cards can only be read in SD-HC devices. You can’t just say, “hey, this is SD, and big, I’ll buy it!”.
So either do lots of reasearch yourself, or go to a camera store where the sales rep knows about various speeds, and what cards are compatable with your camera.
Inflation, smitty. $6/hour then is probably more in real terms than $8/hour now.
But seriously, Ritz (at least the one here in Birmingham) isn’t so bad. My tech-idiot mother went there for a new camera and the sales guy spent a good half hour going over features and such before selling her a camera that was only about $5 more than it would have been online. And he didn’t even push memory cards or extended warranties or anything on her.
I either buy from B&H (one of the only reputable places in NY) or this kickass local camera shop down the street from me.
Now THIS is a real set of confessions.
Keep posting more confessions like these instead of the generic, “if you are rude, we won’t help you,” variety.
Yeeeeears ago, we had two Ritz stores in our city, operated by the same guy. He was the slimiest salesman I ever met, but he did know his stuff, and any repairs or special orders were done without any problems (maybe he treated repeat customers like us a bit better).
He had a good store to do comparison shopping, and if you bought in an advert from a local competitor, he’d often price-match, if not beat it but a point or so.
With the advent of online prices and outlets, he flat out stopped matching and said hat you saw posted is what you paid.
When he sold the franchises, the new guy wound up closing one store in about 6 months, and turned the other one into a Ritz with horror stories like you read about.
@formatc: Buying from your ‘local’ Ritz Camera isn’t ‘buying local’ at all.
@Buran: also, adorama. they have good open-box specials.
I also worked for Ritz off and on for a long time, 5 stores in 3 states, though admittedly not in a couple years. I take issue with several of the “Confessor’s” points.
1) ESP – It is a poor deal for anyone who is careful with their stuff. However, it’s generally a great deal for people with kids, pets, or the clumsy gene. I bought a plan on the camera I bought my sister last year – Because with an infant and a 2 year old in the house, she needs it.
2) Why are you calling you DM on a simple price match? Sounds like there needs to be re-training. I PM’d the camera I mentioned in 1, and no DM was required. Everything else mentioned is standard PM procedure just about everywhere.
3) The Ritz cards are cheaper than the name brands, so how is this a problem for the consumer? In the four years I worked there, I never saw anyone have a problem with any memory card. Including ones people had run through the washer, among other things. Flash memory is some of the most stable stuff out there. Non-issue.
5) They used to call these frequent foto cards, because they were the most useful for people that were frequent customers. I saw it’s usefulness for some of our customers… and we did have some that would literally print hundreds a month.
7) Is that new? That was not a service we charged for when I was working there. It was free of charge for us to help you scan pictures.
8) Yup, displays get sold. Although I generally worked in stores where the stock moved quickly enough that cameras were rarely on display more than a week. And if something gets damaged, send it back defective! Ask your manager where your defective bin is if you’re unaware. I never sold a camera with anything wrong with it.
9) If you want to make money, don’t work in retail. Ritz had some of the best medical benefits out there for full time employees though.
10) If you’ve got a frequently broken machine, or old equipment, you must be a C-class store. C class stores mean they sell very little, have older equipment, and don’t have much volume. These are generally smaller stores in rural areas. A and AA class stores have the newest Fuji equipment and those machines require very little maintenence. Our one-hour percentage for the last store I worked at was well over 90%.
@smitty1123: I got $7.85 at Best Buy in 2002-2003. I was only there while I was looking for a real job after I graduated college. I feel bad for anybody about to graduate, because with the economy the way it is, I think we’re going to see a lot of people in the same boat I was in a few years ago.
@freshyill: I got $5 at Burger King in 1994.
I have a Ritz camera gift card for two years and I haven’t found a single reason to use it.
@arch05: A local B&M, even one belonging to a chain, is still paying local employees. I understand what you’re saying, but it’s better than nothing.
I concede the fact that Ritz probably is a long way down the toilet, but this sounds more like a sour grapes employee. There is a stereotypical retail employee that hates the job and is usually pissed about working it because of some set of circumstances that forces him/her to do so. Either they got fired from somewhere else, laid off, or they are just unmotivated. They complain about everything, never get a decent raise (but don’t deserve one either), gossip, and are generally useless when dealing with customers.
By the ramblings of this person they fit into the mold.
@AlteredBeast:
All good points on memory cards. But did you really expect to get worthwile information from someone making $8 an hour?
If you need advice/guidance, your best bet is probably a good local camera store followed by B&H or Adorama if you aren’t local to NYC.
And if you get advice from a local store, don’t then purchase from an online dealer. At least not if you like having local dealers stay in business.
I’ve found that Ritz Camera is a wonderful place to go try new cameras and lenses. (They’re happy to let me try out their lenses on my own dSLR body in the store.) Then I buy what I want online or elsewhere.
I have bought a few items there, such as camera bags, that weren’t much more than online and preferable to buy in a brick & mortar. But I would never buy actual camera gear from them.
I dropped a $450 lens onto concrete a few years ago. The lens still worked fine (a testament to Canon manufacturing, especially for a fairly big and heavy 75-300 zoom), but the UV filter screwed onto the end had shattered and was stuck to the lens. I took the lens into Ritz, and they told me it would be $300 just to send the lens in, and possibly more for repairs depending on the severity of the problem.
I took the same lens into a local shop (Hunt Photo and Video in the Boston area.) They first suggested a safe way for me to try to get the filter off myself. After that failed, I brought the lens back in and they sent it to a 3rd party technician who simply drilled into the UV filter and removed it. Lens was good as new. Total cost: $15 including shipping. I’ve given them my business on several purchases since then, even if it’s a bit more than online.
I learned my lesson and haven’t dropped any of my camera gear since that incident!
These are my favorite kind of posts. Revenge posts.
@ClayS: Good point…but this was listed as a confession. He says how Ritz says their cards are faster, but they are all just exactly the same. Unless they are just rebranded, I doubt they are exactly the same. As well as he seems to make it sound like faster cards are irrelavant.
@formatc: I know you get what I’m saying, but that’s like saying ‘Shop at your local Walmart & help your local economy!’. The minority of the money you spend there goes to the employees. The majority goes to the uberhumongoconglomerate upstream. Living in Austin, I have hippys pounding the ‘GO LOCAL!’ mantra into my head every second of every day. But you know what, once they put the peace pipe down, they make some sense. So support your local camera hobby store, & fuck ritz!
I had the price switch pulled on me ($15 on the sales floor, and “oops, it’s actually $25″ at the register) at the Tysons Corner store. I don’t remember them trying to sign me up for the Ritz card, so maybe it was an honest mistake.
@freshyill: That really depends on whether you’re working towards a useful degree. (History, Philosophy, Liberal Arts majors… I’m sorry but you are screwed.)
I mean, I have 2 job offers floating for after I graduate in August. I’m about to earn my BS in networking & information systems, which is basically CS Lite. It’s not that tough.
Also that wage at Best Buy they were giving you is substandard. I worked for Geek Squad during my sophomore and junior years of college and made 12 bucks an hour. I also got tons of free or steeply-discounted stuff from vendors.
@AlteredBeast:
I don’t disagree. The speed of the card can be very significant. I recently purchased a camera rated to shoot at 6 fps. With a slow memory card, the camera is likely not to meet that spec. I don’t need this guy telling me to buy the cheapest card with most memory.
@redhelix: Right… because nobody with one of those degrees has a job. They might as well let you major in panhandling.
Idiot.
i can’t believe ritz camera is still around. they’ve been shit for years.
That picture looks like the old Pekin Mall in Pekin, IL.
I went to a ritz recently to check out the Olympus 510. The woman behind the counter was very helpful, and she knew I was just looking, and yet she gave me her full attention and even offered to charge a camera so i could check out the menu on it. She also gave a noob some great advice on picking there 1st camera. She was knowledgeable and was also a part time wedding photographer.
Wouldn’t buy a camera from them though there prices are high.
Ritz is aweful as a camera store. Very limited selection, no lenses to test (The one thing you really want to buy local!) Horrible prices. I can’t find a reason to step into one.
I’d not shop there for the simple fact that they repackage demo cameras and sell them as new. That’s horse pucky.
@scoobyhed: I’m in B’ham too and I’ve never had any problems with one of our local Wolf Cameras. I do most of my research on line and then go there to handle the actual camera before deciding whether or not to by.
I haven’t bought prints in YEARS, but I was always really happy with the quality of prints they gave me when I was still using 35mm film.
myfriendusedtoworkatritzandiftheysawanypicturesofnaked/goodlooking/girlswithbigcheststheywouldmakedoubleprintsandputthemina”goodies”drawer.”
This was back when most people used film.
I saw George Lucas in the Northgate Mall (Marin County, CA) Ritz. Before Episodes I-III. That is the only good thing about Ritz Camera.
Alright, so another former Ritz employee here. And I will tell you what I think about all of this… First of all, yeah, the pay isn’t that great, I made like eight bucks an hour, but I generally made a dollar to a dollar-fifty an hour extra from SIs (he’s right, they don’t pay much on items, but they do add up). And I was in a CORE store, the smallest in our district (which was South Puget Sound, btw – I worked in Spokane). So if you’re motivated and you work in a busy store you can make a decent living. Plus the benefits for full-time employees are AMAZING, and even part-timers have decent basic medical if they want it.
Also, as far as I’m concerned, yeah, the prices are MSRP, basically, but think about it – brick-and-mortar stores have to pay employees, rent, utilities and so on. I also kind of felt that you were paying for the service, as everyone I know who has worked at a Ritz is more than willing to spend literally hours helping you figure out how to use your new camera. (Don’t make a poor Ritz employee run down features of cameras for more than an hour and then tell them you’re going to Costco, either – that happened to me repeatedly and it made me want to throw something. It’s just rude.)
Ritz’s memory cards were the CHEAPEST we had in stock. And they were Lexar, absolutely nothing wrong with them. I personally have four of them and they work fine. You do need the faster cards for some things though, we were not lying about that to try to get you to spend more.
One last thing, then I’ll shut up. The ESPs – those are really not that bad. Expensive, yes, but almost always cheaper than a repair. And you could do almost anything to your camera except for set it on fire and we would fix or replace it. It takes a while, but so does paying to repair your camera. Also, the multi-years were a pretty cool thing simply because you could smash your old camera to pieces right before the ESP expired and you would get a new/updated version of your camera back!
So yeah, anyone can bitch and complain about a huge national corporation. Ritz has 1200 stores; I don’t think they’re doing too bad (and our DM was GREAT).
I used to work with Wolf, and I can definitely say that the most of this is true.
No matter what the employee tells you, DON”T EVER GET THE BIG PRINT YOU (6×4.5)!!! They’ll tell you that all the heads will be cut off (which some may, but it’s simple to fix) and they tell you that you can get frames and albums for them everywhere. You can’t. The only place I seen them at is their store.
The pay is pretty good, for not that much work (at my store at least), as long as you’re in the lab. I started out at $7.50 and within a year, I was making $8.75 plus sales incentives. These incentives can add up quite nicely, that’s really only during Christmas though.
But hey, I was only one of the best lab operators in the Birmingham district and they fired me because the two weekdays I worked, my sales weren’t up to there standards. I worked strictly in the lab and was fired because my sales were down.
As a former Ritz employee, myself, I need to correct the one glaring error in this article:
It’s “sales associate,” according to my old business cards.
Otherwise, everything looks about right to me.
Ritz is the Microsoft of camera stores. Nobody really loves them, but a lot of people have to deal with them because they’ve bought out so much of the competition.
Even though it is also a chain (albeit much smaller) I have had nothing but good experience with Penn Camera. Prices that competed with BB/CC, and staff that were a hundred thousand times more knowledgeable (in that they know about cameras and don’t just read the specs off the price card). If you can’t go local, go small chain!
My husband once bought me a camera lens at Ritz for Christmas because he waited until the last minute to shop. I later found the bill (he used a joint card to charge it) and saw where it was from, how much it cost, and told him to return it. We got the same lens about $150 less through Amazon.
I do have one favorite camera dealer, though. [www.butterflyphoto.com]
First of all, this person is pretty much on the money. Now, I am basically going to reiterate a few of the facts the person stated above, being a former manager of 3 years at one.
1. ESP- Great deal, but VERY expensive, your camera will take 2 months AT LEAST to get back, huge inconvenience, but they tell the truth that it will be repaired or replaced due to ANY damage, also its huge money for the store and associates get 10-15% commission for them based on how many years they can sell up to 5.
2. PRICE MATCHING- Not much to say about this, yeah we have to check the store and then check the ad if applicable, but its basic price matching, not really done too much.
3. MEMORY CARDS – This is very true, the RITZ brand cards are basically crap and give the associate the most spiff’s (commission) from. Yes they claim to be high speed and made from special plastic(some anti-static material), but GET THEM ONLINE!!! You will save a fortune for the SAME card.
4. PRODUCTS – 4 items??? HA! In our district they pushed us to sell at least 8 extra items! the stores are rated by sales with various included items, including an average extra “addon amount” and if its not up to par with the district average the heat comes down to the management to push the associates to sell more.
5. FREQUENT FOTO CARD/IMAGE REWARDS CARD – Utterly useless, do not get your photos printed at Ritz, half the time they train high school kids in a few days to print on a Fuji Frontier, even though its an easy machine, to print your photos for the same quality and machines that are at your local wal-mart for HALF the price, they claim to color correct and all that jazz, but it BARELY makes the difference, especially with their enlargements(prices inflated drastically).
6. PRINTS – Basically same as above, the extra inch is a simple ploy to think you are getting your money’s worth. 4×6 is the standard and it will be nearly impossible to find any album or frame UNLESS AT RITZ to fit your “NEW digital standard” photos.
7. SCANNING – No comment really, its definitely over priced.
8. DEMO CAMERAS – THIS is fun!!! Definitely a total joke! Yes we drop the cameras, yes we wipe the finger prints off and toss them back into the box, LYING to the customer that the camera is “Brand New”. Sure you get your occasional defect, which we send back to the warehouse, but any popular camera, MAKE SURE You watch the clerk get a SEALED box, and check the seal, on many occasions I knew of clerks getting super sneaky with the demos so they wouldn’t get into a confrontation with the customer about the price and it being a demo. That response from earlier talking about how they have a quick rotating stock is a load of BS, the camera sits in the hands of many people even if it is up there for a few days, If I pay full price for a camera, I want it BRAND NEW, untouched.
9. EMPLOYEES- Every employee that asks the district manager for a raise will get this same answer, “you want more money?…..SELL MORE”. There is no advancement for the sales team whatsoever, if you happen to work in the lab, they have this drawn out training process where you complete these packets for like a 25 cent raise every year to a max of 1.25 additional after about 5 years of dedicated lab training, which is TOTALLY a waste of time. Someone said their benefits were amazing, this is totally false, the benefits are HORRIBLE, I dont know who claims they are good, but the employee discount is less than tax(usually) for camera gear, and the only benefit is basically half off of processing, which isn’t that big of a deal as well. Management benefits include a spiff at the end of the month which if they meet a sales goal and/or a lab goal they get like 100-300 bucks extra, but they don’t make that much more than the employees.
10. ONE HOUR PHOTO – This is the only category I slightly disagree with, most store, which do next to none processing unless its one of the Frontier stores that to a TON of processing, get your photos finished well within an hour, even if they have crappy equipment, broken down problems happen to all kinds of machines not just the “crappy ones”. Discounts if not free processing will be given if there does happen to be a problem.
After reading most of the responses I do want to add just a few things, FIRST – Some of the GOOD salesmen will sit there and describe everything to the customer and go over all the features, good time waster and lets those salesmen end up adding additional stuff to the sale. SECONDLY the comment about store classifications does not really make sense, classifications are broken down into Processing and Hard Goods(camera gear). You can be a C store in processing and a AA Store in hard goods. THIRDLY benefits, medical for part timers is some useless company you have to pay extra 20 bucks a week for which is some TV insurance that has horrible deductibles and providers, the only decent coverage is MAJOR MEDICAL problems, dental and vision are awful, basic provider book for all types of coverage, not the best doctors, (I’m not sure if this changes from region to region).
THE BEST FINAL WORD OF ADVICE:
Go into a Ritz if you need to do some comparison shopping and let the clerk take you through the entire breakdown of the equipment you need, take notes and BUY ONLINE!!! It happens all the time, its what basically 50% of the people do, and its the best FREE information you can receive about camera equipment. There are tons of retailers online with free shipping and tax that will make it worth your time.
@youwantedahero: @cablecar: I find it appalling that consumers spend so much of an hourly employees time, comparing, testing , being educated on a product, then feel it is absolutely alright to buy the exact product recommended on line. This is the behavior that is going to result in your choices being: buy what you want at Costco/WalMArt/BestBuy. Suffer with their limited selection, poor service and uneducated. uninterested employees.As far as FREE information. Nothing is free! Someone has to pay that employee, cover business costs, etc. You have essencially wasted the employees time and probably contributed to the demise of their collapse. Good for you! Hope you saved enough money to help pay for welfare. Glad you got such a good deal.
I liked this article better last year when it was called “8 Confessions Of A Ritz Camera Sales Employee”
@AaronZ:
don’t go there. I flamed the RShack before and it wasn’t pretty. people actually died.
yes I’m joking, but be prepared to fight the pro-radioshack commenters (although anyone willing to join the anti-RShack cause should speak up!
@NoWin:
in my time working at a local camera store (within the past year), faulty memory cards are found in batches (few, but MANY between). If you use pro-brands (genuine Sandisk Ultra/Extreme, Hoodman, Kingston, etc) you will most likely not see any problems…the house/offbrands generally are great, but upon initial use they will error if something is wrong. If that is the case simpy exchange them.
If a memory card is faulty you will notice this almost immediately (either when shooting or transferring). For everyone there’s a bargain memory card.]
Retail’s a bitch, and then you die.
$8 and hour? This is what’s wrong with America, guys. What we think of as ‘middle class life’ depends on the existence of legions who work for less than what it takes to be middle class.
Something’s got to give. If we keep wanting it now, cheap, and to a high standard, we require armies of people who are virtually slaves-no more life serfs. We’re going to have to be willing to pay more and have less for the non-essentials. The strength of the American economy is in it’s middle class, yet the number of poor people that the middle needs to exist seems to keep on growing.
So Ritz Camera is cutting corners by paying it’s employees crap and delivering service that looks good but isn’t? Blame yourselves.
And face it. America’s a serf economy. The different between serfs and slaves, if you’re wondering, is that masters had the responsibility to see that slaves were fed, housed, and had some for of medical care. People who use serfs can command their labor, yet give them so little they rot, sicken and die out in the cold.
And that’s us, folks, the serf-using class…
What I don’t understand is there is a brand new Ritz store in this fancy outdoor shopping center near me….and they are surrounded by a Wegmans supermarket with a busy photo lab, a Circuit City, and a Staples! (plus the whole center has a Target and Walgreens right across the street). I don’t understand how they can even compete…
This is so true. Today is the first time I’ve ever bought anything at a Ritz camera store. The only reason I had to was the flash I need (nikon sb400) was out of stock on Amazon, and amazon’s third party dealers were only a few dollars less than Ritz, but since it’s not Amazon i would’ve had to pay shipping, so I actually got something from Ritz. The only flash they had was the display model, i was like “what?” They didn’t give a discount and almost couldn’t find the box which includes the warranty info, etc. I hope to never buy anything there again. I got my D40 and lenses on Amazon for hundreds less than Ritz. I’m not really sure how they stay in business at all.
Here’s a positive post to go against the grain: Is anyone from Tampa familiar with the Ritz at Citrus Park mall? That’s an interesting store. I bring it up because it seems to be the exception to the rule, and I’m curious if there are any others like it. My experience there has been almost radically different from what I’ve seen at other Ritz/Wolf stores, Best Buys, etc. Does Ritz have corporate-owned and franchised stores?
Every employee I’ve met there is an actual photographer in their own time, some of them professional. They know what things are and what they do. Heck I’m thrilled whenever someone knows what f-stops are, let alone how to use them. I typically hold a photography-related conversation with the manager when he’s in, and I’ve received some sound advice from him regarding equipment. That’s a big departure from the usual “more megapixels are better, buy our service plan!”
A while back I had some prints made of medium format equipment I’m helping a friend sell, and I was pleasantly surprised when they recognized all of it. One of them was even interested in buying a Hasselblad lens. Everyone is very helpful, and they put up with my annoying requests to try lenses. As far as I can tell, most things are stocked well. They have most popular Canon and Nikon lenses, bodies for every current consumer/prosumer system, and the usual slew of point and shoots and accessories.
They have one employee who appears to operate the printer exclusively, and unlike prints I’ve received elsewhere, I have never encountered quality issues, nor has an order been delayed during low volume. The printing guy even accepted a request from my mom to restore some extremely faded wedding photographs, and while I’m not exactly sure what equipment or software he used, it definitely wasn’t the KPM kiosk’s scanner with the contrast turned up.
I like going to a camera shop where I’m not weary about talking about cameras or photography for fear of it going right over the employee’s heads. Hopefully there are other stores out there like this. Of course there are still some of the usual snags: retail B&M pricing, lagging behind on some camera models, cheap overpriced accessories (This is a big one – $80 for a 77mm MCUV filter by freaking Tiffen is ridiculous). But in terms of staff, it’s the closest experience I’ve had to a local pro camera shop without actually going to one.
By way of rebuttal, an anonymous employee of another Ritz Camera location sent us the following email:
1. **ESP:** While there are lots of things about retail sales that I
don’t like, this isn’t one of them. If you’re extremely good about
taking care of all of your electronic equipment — and figure in the
stuff that gets carried around with you (phone, iPod, PDA, etc.), not
just the stuff that sits on the shelf at home — then no, this
probably isn’t for you. But if you have kids, pets, are clumsy, lend
your toys to other people (even briefly), or live/work in adverse
conditions (contractors, areas of high heat and/or humidity, areas
near saltwater beaches, many other examples that I can think of), then
this is worth it. It covers _anything_ short of loss, theft, or the
equipment getting roasted in a fire. If we can read the serial number,
then it’s covered. Drop it, go swimming with it, let the dog chew on
it, toss it out a window and scoop up the pieces — we get it working.
We do have to quote 6-8 weeks for any repair or replacement, it’s not
an instantaneous grab-a-new-box-off-the-shelf policy; it is more
expensive than other ‘extended warranty’ plans; but it’s as close as
we can come to guaranteeing you’ll never have a problem with the camera.
2. **Prices:** The first part is correct: same item, in stock. I don’t
know why this person has to call their DM for a price match — I don’t
even have to clear it with my manager. If I can verify that the
customer could go somewhere else to get the item for a lower price,
then that’s the price they get. Equipment can be cheaper online, yes
– we even have to compete with our own online presence, as it’s tax-
free, while are retail stores have to charge state tax. We do what we
can to make up for that, though, with hands-on demos, help, and
customer service. At least, I do my best — obviously, I can’t
personally vouch for any other salespeople.
3. **Memory Cards:** The Ritz-branded memory cards are simply
rebranded Lexar memory cards — take a look, the Lexar logo is right
there on the packaging. We also carry non-rebranded Lexar, Panasonic,
and have recently expanded our selection of Sandisk. Sometimes our
cards are cheaper, sometimes the other brands are cheaper. Speed
ratings for all the cards are somewhere on the packaging, and are easy
to explain. The different types of cards are certainly not “all the
same,” though for your average point-and-shoot customer, the higher
speed cards generally aren’t necessary.
4. **Products:** Of course we’re supposed to suggest items — this is
retail sales. Generally speaking, those items are either going to be
things you need (batteries that won’t die in ten minutes, a memory
card so you can take more than ten pictures), things you might want
(accessories), or things our company would like you to get (yes, this
category exists — things like the ESP mentioned in point one, or the
Image Rewards Card that’s mentioned next). Is there a retail chain out
there that _doesn’t_ suggest items? Some salespeople will be pushier
about this than others, and a good salesperson will make it as
painless as possible, but it’s going to happen.
5. **Image Rewards Card:** Admittedly, not one of my favorite
programs, but I’m personally not a fan of a customer rewards club that
requires the customer to buy in — I’d rather have companies offer the
reward programs gratis so that any benefits are actually rewards
earned by frequent customers. That said, this card _can_ save
customers money if they’re regularly printing photos. It’s not for
everyone, but it can be a good thing for some.
6. **Prints**: Okay, I have to admit, I’m mostly in agreement with
this one. The basic idea of Big Print You is a good one: since digital
cameras take a 4:3 ratio photo, standard 4×6 prints, which use a 2:3
ratio, crop off a portion of the image. BPY’s default size of 4.5×6
prints the full 4:3 ratio digital photo with no cropping.
Unfortunately, the company is positioning this as a ‘premium’ service,
and I do agree that it’s overpriced (especially as they just dropped
the price of 4×6 prints). Frames and albums were also a long time
coming, and though they do exist now, they’re not nearly as common or
easy to find as the standard sizes.
7. **Scanning:** This appears to vary on a store-by-store basis. The
official company line is that scans are $2 each (I’m not sure where
the $2.50 price point quoted in the original article came from). The
store I work at only charges this if we do the scans, as it’s
considered a service charge for the time we have to take off the sales
floor to do the scanning. If the customer does the scans themselves,
we don’t bother with the scanning charge. However, other stores in our
area don’t follow this policy, so it may be worth asking at particular
stores what their policy is — or, of course, simply buying an
inexpensive home scanner.
8. **Demo Cameras:** Yes, we sell our demos, and unfortunately,
company policy does not allow us to discount the demo units. It would
be nice if we could do that, but I don’t expect the policy to change.
Until then, the demo units are still covered by the manufacturer’s one-
year guarantee, our 10/30 day return/exchange policy, and possibly the
ESP if the customer decides to get that. If a demo camera is not in
saleable condition (no dings, scratches, blemishes, and in out-of-the-
box working order), then it gets marked as a ‘defective’ and sent
back. If a customer is looking at a demo and we don’t have any more
boxed, I let them know that it we can sell them the demo, or we can
try to either find another store in the area with the same camera or
order one through our warehouse. At _no_ time are we told to lie to
the customer.
9. **Employees:** The original writer initially states that he’s been
working for Ritz for around or over three years for $8/hour. I’m not
surprised, if his attitude in his post reflects his attitude in the
store. In my two years, I’ve received two raises, putting me at $9/
hour base pay. With the “sales incentives” — variable commission on
various items — my actual pay ranges from $10-$15 an hour, pushing
close to $20/hr during the Christmas rush. It is a retail job, and the
base pay is never going to be incredibly high. If you want to earn
more, you need to be willing to work for it — either through sales,
or through finding another job.
10. **One Hour Photo:** If the original writer’s machines are breaking
down that frequently, than his lab, if not his entire store, is being
severely mismanaged. A well-run lab will have minimal downtime, and
the “One Hour or it’s Free” deal is little more than an advertising
campaign designed to put a fresh face on business as usual.
The problem with ‘exposés’ or ‘confessions’ like these are that
they’re most likely written by someone with an axe to grind, and
aren’t likely to be objective at all. I’m no Ritz superstar (my sales
numbers, while decent, are never ‘star’ level, I’ve heard plenty of
horror stories about other stores, and even had a few myself before I
was hired), and at heart, it _is_ retail sales. However, I do think
that there are also a lot of excellent stores and employees who _do_
try to do their best, to provide good information, and to help their
customers, instead of simply sleazing their way into the highest
paycheck possible. Just remember that people are a lot more likely to
share bad experiences than good ones, and remember that there _are_ a
few of us working at Ritz that try to do our jobs well.
I come from a family that owns an independent camera shop. We regularly sell “demo” cameras – and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.
I asked my father how often he sold a camera that ended up being defective without the buyer doing something to break it (dropping it, whatever). He said he remembered that happening 15 or 20 years ago when cameras had more moving parts. He’s never had a digital camera returned as defective.
As long as the demo cameras are cleaned with care before being handed over to the customer, there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying one. Usually, we clean the cameras every day to remove dust and fingerprints – and I understand most camera shops do so.
Another vote for B&H. I’ve bought from them 4+ times, online, and they’ve always been great.
@3drage: That’s also illegal.