Last week, one of the participants who is going on my France workshop in September asked my advice regarding buying a lighter weight tripod, something similar to what she is already using (Manfrotto #055XB Classic). The obvious choice would be the Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 Carbon Fiber. But where she should buy is another question.
Since she lives in Canada, I thought I would give her the link to Henry’s (which is the largest Canadian photo retailer) web site for the tripod. At Henry’s the tripod costs $629.99 As a comparison I also checked the price at B&H Photo in NY, it is several hundred dollars less, costing only $359.95 for exactly the same tripod. Now while I am a patriotic Canadian and believe in supporting local businesses, this is just crazy! That’s a savings of $270.
Sometimes, well most of the time, having anything shipped from the US to Canada can cost a lot of money. But B&H will ship this tripod for free anywhere in the US, so the solution is to use a company like MyUSAddress and for $5.00 she can have the tripod shipped there. Since 95% of the Canadian population live just about an hour’s drive North of the US border, I know where I would buy this tripod.
UPDATE: This post received 17 comments on my Facebook page. Everyone, including myself , feels strongly about supporting and buying from Canadian suppliers, and don’t mind spending a little more but once it gets to 30 or 40 percent it gets a bit ridiculous.
One of my friends who works for Henry’s, looked into the pricing with the Canadian supplier for Manfrotto tripods. Apparently the supplier pays more for that particular tripod than B&H sells it for. An interesting side note is that the day after this article was posted, B&H raised the price of this tripod by nearly $100.00 and Henry’s have lowered the price by $30.00
I’m a vocal supporter of shopping locally and thought I’d add my two cents via the follow rant.
My preference is to keep my hard earned money in my local community where it will benefit my friends, family and neighbours who in turn will spend their money within our community and keep it vital.
It’s an idealistic model, I get that, and yes I realize that I buy things that are manufactured elsewhere – that’s not what I’m writing about.
Sometimes there may be a difference in price between my local camera supplier and buying the same thing online, or over the border, however, I believe the extra price is worth it to keep my local camera supplier in business.
Why do I want to do that? Often I run in there needing a last minute rental, or some advice in a panic, or a special order and they are ALWAYS more than willing to help out. They sponsor local events that keep photographers networking and they donate time, effort and product to our conventions and programs.
$270 is a big difference and I understand that we all have families to feed and taxes to pay, so here’s my suggestion. Next time you are faced with such a drastic price difference, ask your local supplier if they are in a position to match that price or come down a bit. If not, and they may not be, at least you have given them the opportunity and your first choice was to keep your money in your community. Be cautious though not to grind them constantly with comparison ads as different communities have different economies.
My supplier is Beau Photo here in Vancouver and they do an outstanding job of supporting me and my business every step of the way so I gladly pay their prices and honestly, have never comparison shopped. In the end, it’s worth more to me to have local support than a bit of extra cash in my pocket.
End of rant,
Anna