*UPDATED* No New Canon Stock for Wolf/Ritz Camera

Agreed. The store in my area is the exact same. Horrible selection with even less in stock, outrageous prices and mediocre customer support. I drive 30 miles to go to a real camera store while there’s a Ritz just up the street. I don’t want any camera stores to go out of business, but this store seems completely ignorant to the digital market.

Since you have an insider’s perspective, can you enlighten us on why your company is going out of business?

Sounds like the USA version of Jessops and it sounds like they are both going the same way.

To Justin, maybe your store is fighting the tide and still offering good service to your customers, IM sure some UK Jessops stores still do but with both companies looking to rip their customers off there is only so much you can do im afraid. Good luck.

Those aren’t very good lenses… Then again I have L fever.

I was offered a job from Ritz a few years back and they wanted to pay only half the wage other camera stores were paying ($7) but I could get bonus’s if I sold Extended Warranties. That also being that they knew I had a college degree and needed minimal training. I politely had to turn down their offer. That branch has since closed in my area and the closed one to me is sacramento.

Great customer service cannot compensate for the grossly overpriced equipment @ Wolf/Ritz. Your 70-200 f/4 lens is $100 more than everyone else, and I’m talking about the online price! I find Wolf staff to be friendly but not exactly knowledgeable of products.

Ritz bought the local Cameras West stores in the Northwest USA and turned them to selling lots of Quantaray stuff where they have a high margin. This did not sit well with experienced photographers and they just kept away, which left them in competition with the likes of Best Buy and Circuit city. Eventually, they were reduced to printing photos, which put them in competition with costco and Walmart. The surge of internet buying sealed the fate of the small local stores with high overhead and junk on their shelves.

Ritz is not going out of business. Where do you get your news from??

Ritz/Wolf filed bankruptcy. They closed a bunch of stores. It apparently wasn’t enough, as they’ve closed more in my area in a second round. This Canon update is clearly tied to the bankruptcy proceedings – I’m sure Canon sent stock to Ritz/Wolf on terms, and Ritz/Wolf couldn’t meet the terms. Bankruptcy means the terms get re-written at the judge’s instruction, but there’s not much the judge can do to require Canon to provide more product just yet.

Ritz/Wolf may tend to be pricey, but usually at products’ first release they’re at standard street price and that’s when I buy from them. 10 months no interest means I can pick up a new camera about 10 months earlier than if I save up and buy, especially if it’s hot enough for the price not to drop quickly. So much for my next camera getting ordered tomorrow.

I just stopped by a Wolf camera store to have them look at a Canon lens that needs repaired (didn’t take my camera body with me). The guy says “Oh well before we send them in for repair, we like to check them out with a camera. I said, ok, and started to step over toward the counter. He said, well we don’t carry Canon anymore, so I can’t test it. was completely shocked, I hadn’t heard of this. I asked him why and he said that Canon had “pulled an Apple” and was now only going to sell Canon products in Canon stores. He indicated they pulled all their Canon stock about two weeks ago.

So basically this guy lied to me then? Canon is still selling their products elsewhere, just not at Wolf/Ritz stores? Ugh. I have a gift card I need to use (can’t let it go to waste!), but after I use that, I think I’ll be avoiding them altogether. That’s just wrong.

I’m a former employee of Ritz Camera.

I was ‘laid off’ when 4 of 5 stores in my area closed down. There was some missing merchandise in the store I worked, and since I owned a couple of the items that were missing, I was questioned about stealing said items. That’s how Ritz treats their employees.

Now, about how they treat customers. They push crappy products (Quantaray, Digital Concepts, etc.) on customers that probably don’t know the difference, but would appreciate the increased quality. They raise their prices substantially over the competition (B&H, Adorama, Best Buy, etc.). They push their ESP service policy on customers with the promise of fixing or replacing the camera at no cost to the customer should anything happen to it, but they fail to mention that a repair or replacement takes a MINIMUM 6-8 weeks and often times, the customer has to call and have the employees harass the customer service department about the status of the replacement camera should the repair department deem the camera an uneconomical repair. I know this because I sent a Canon SD750 off after I dropped it in a pool and it took 15 weeks to come back to me. What did they send me? A Canon SD750 that had 3 significant surface scratches on the front and several scratches on the LCD. I saw them do similar things to other customers, in which case I swapped the camera out for a brand new one in store and wrote the provided camera off as defective. They sell returned cameras at full price (usually more than the competition). They sell their Quantaray filters at a higher price than most B+W, Tiffen and Cokin counterparts.

David Ritz filed for bankruptcy under Ritz Camera Centers, but somehow came up with the funds to purchase Ritz Camera Centers out of bankruptcy under the new company Ritz Camera & Image. Oh, and he also parks his new yacht in the Charleston, SC harbor where I live.

So, Canon pulled their equipment agreement so they wouldn’t get screwed again. Ritz recalled ALL Nikon equipment, sent it back to Nikon and repurchased it to keep Nikon gear in their stores. As for Canon, they just let the bankruptcy bail them out of the 20+ million dollars they owed them.

Some company. I don’t care if they go out of business or not. David Ritz allows poor purchases of football-shaped webcams, colorful crap cameras that he thinks will be all the rage, laptops, televisions and MP3 players. He’s like the flea market of camera dealers. He doesn’t deserve to have a thriving company.

There are more stores slated to close after January 1, also.

I’ll never spend a dime at a Ritz Camera again and I advise all of you to do the same. Use B&H, Adorama, KEH, eBay, whatever you can to avoid Ritz Camera. They care very little for their customers and even less for their employees.

I worked at Ritz too. While I liked the job and the people, Matthew’s comment is dead on (though I never had issues with management like he mentioned).

Canon pulled out in August or so. Right after the bankruptcy. I’m pretty sure they just didn’t want to get hosed again.

Canon is looking at a single brand retail strategy.

The guy didn’t necessarily lie to you, but that doesn’t mean he was accurate in what he said.

Canon has not and will not extend a new dealer contract to Ritz at this time. Canon also has not and will not renew or change terms on a variety of dealer contracts to some of the third party distributors whose previous contracts came up for renewal or expired after July 2009. Allegedly two of these third party companies were looked at by Ritz as suppliers before Canon left them out to dry as well.

Until Canon makes up its mind over the single brand retail strategy they want to manage the long term competition agreements to these possible stores. Besides, anyone that signs a new agreement will get second rate access to inventory as Canon wants to cater to B&H, Calumet, and Best Buy as they are such high volume dealers.

So you can definitely find Canon gear at places, but that number is slowly contracting in the event that Canon goes single brand.

You don’t get the accurate picture from Ritz employees because Ritz hasn’t shared, informed, or educated any of the staff about the situation.

As for Ritz as a business. It all depends on the store. The company is privately held and reflects the ego of David Ritz. The idea is to make money for David at all costs. If you go into a store that doesn’t have knowledge or only pushes the cheap crap put then that store is probably closed.

But you would be amazed at how many people go into those stores on a daily basis and want a filter for $10.00, find $40.00 for a tripod to be too much, and want to buy batteries for a SLR for $15.00.

As for the treatment of employees.. Yep, its a corporation…

Many people have alos become fans of Paul Smith Shoes since they came into the market. I also one of them , I very like Paul Smith Wallets and <a Paul Smith Belts,It designs very good.

Justin,
The D5000 is a really good-selling camera. Probably one of Nikon’s best. I sold a ton of them when I worked at Ritz as well. I think it has less to do with Canon’s kit lens and more to do with the fact that Nikon has priced their cameras slightly more competitively and also offering the in-camera help guides. Not to mention Ritz and Nikon’s long-time “partnership” where Ritz advertised in-store for Nikon with large signs, upright displays and package deals with Nikon that included multiple lenses, bags and accessories at a seemingly fair price. Canon never got any of e , but then again they probably never negotiated that part of it and just let it go so it’s possibly more their fault than it is Ritz’s.

Ritz camera is a good place to work for. As for service and knowledge I think it depends on who helps you when you walk in, because there are salespeople and lab people. . we strive to make sure everyone gets the best help possible. . as for canon. . it will come back soon, but is definitely not vital for Ritz to survive. . canon is a good brand but there is better stuff out there for less money. . .also there is always going to be someone that sees a price on the internet cheaper than retail all the time. . but as a retail stand point a customer will always get the best price locally and help with the item they purchased. . something they wont get online! All the stores that needed to close did. . there are only good stores now. its a new company and the future is bright. . .people that were let go and the stores that closed needed to do so for a reason. . kinda like when ur hungry you need to eat. .

Do you live in New York?

I have yet to find a major chain that does not directly operate a .com operation in concert with their stores that match websites.

Fixed overhead is about 17% more for physical retailers than .coms

Having a physical retailer not match an out of state internet price doesn’t seem like a scam to me…

But then again, I seem to live in a part of the country where the customers aren’t tossers and the stores have decent staff…

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Nice introduce!I just have new choice to shop for digicam.I have new beby and I needed high speed shutter to use my beby photo.

hey Ritz Camera and Ritz Camera.com are two completely separate beings. Did you ever wonder why you do not have to pay state tax online? It’s because they are not physical stores residing in a STATE. What happens when all of our retail stores go out and the only way to buy is online? What if you wanted to go hold a camera and see how it feels to you before you lay out a grand. Something wrong with what you got shipped? Well I hope you can understand thick accents and like to be put on hold, treated like you know nothing, and most likely hung up on cause that person on the other line will still get paid over there in India if he pisses you off or not. Come into a retail store, talk to someone face to face and, if it were me, I would do everything in my power to help you out and get you going again. I love my retail job mostly because of how I get to teach people and get them what they need. This is also the reason most people in this company are trained to sell sell sell, I hate that tactic but the internet is going to end us. You probably won’t read this Matthew, but I was going through this feed and for some reason felt like venting on your post… Corporate America though, is all about money money, but if our economy and jobs are ever going to come back, we need retail!