Where I Get My Photography Equipment

As a working photographer I get asked quite a bit, “where do you get your equipment?”  Since I’m not sponsored by anyone I can honestly say I’m not tied down to any one place.  Just like this backpack I’m free to roam the landscape.

Even though I can go anywhere on the internet for the lowest prices that’s not the deciding factor.  Here are the major factors I think of when it comes to choosing the right vendor (in order of importance).

  • Customer service reputation
  • Selection and Availability
  • Price

Customer Service Reputation

There’s a book out right now by Gary Vaynerchuk called “The Thank You Economy” which I’m in the middle of reading.  He talks about how the tides are turning on the Wal-Marts and Costcos because of the chattiness of Web 2.0.  These huge corporations in the past could get away with poor service because no one was talking on a large scale.  Today, go on Twitter or Facebook to slam them and not only your friends will hear it but their friends will hear it and tell their friends and so on and so forth.  Good customer service is being able to trust your vendor.  If I hear from someone that a store has bad customer service, price, selection, etc. then I will most likely not trust them.

Selection and Availability

Second for me is selection and availability.  Remember Consumers Distributing?  If not, read the Wikipedia article on it.  Back in the 80’s and early 90’s their business model was ahead of the times.  You would shop by way of a catalog and then pick up your product at a counter in a warehouse.  The reason they failed?  They never had anything available and you found out when you went to pick it up.  Fast forward to today companies like Amazon thrive because they have a wide selection and you are aware instantly if they have it available or not.

Price

Self explanatory… but factor in the cost of shipping for ordering online vs. cost of time and gasoline for local stores.

OK so here is a picture of my office at the moment.  I had an editorial fashion shoot yesterday at Henry Singer and this is only half of what we were using.  Most if not all of this was purchased from these four places:

Local to Calgary

Get shipped from Toronto

Get shipped from New York

I troll Henry’s and B&H first because they have the largest selection.  Once I find the right piece of equipment I check to see if my local stores Vistek or The Camera Store carries them.  If the local stores have them in stock and they have competitive pricing, I drive down to pick them up.   Henry’s is cheaper to ship obviously because I don’t pay the import duty.  With B&H pay the more expensive shipping with either FedEx or UPS to avoid brokerage fees (somtimes).  All of these companies have exemplary customer service otherwise I would not even mention them.  I won’t mention the places that I’ve had poor customer service.  I think the best way to know who they are is just to omit them altogether.
Let me know if you have any specific questions. I’ll be happy to answer them for you!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 2:53 am. It is filed under Round Pixel News and tagged with , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

One Response to “Where I Get My Photography Equipment”

  1. Pete | Hecktic Travels says:
    May 3, 2011 at 4:48 pm

    Awesome Jeff. Thanks so much. I will be checking out the local shops in Calgary when I up. I just have to figure out what the hell I need to buy now….