By Claire Reilly
With the Australian unveiling of its new flagship compact system camera at the start of the month, Panasonic reiterated its commitment to the Australian electrical retail space and its focus on premium products designed to bring profitability back to the digital imaging sector.
The brand’s new Lumix GX7 mirrorless camera is billed by the brand as the ideal camera for street photography, and as a device that retailers can sell as a trade-up from more entry-level compact cameras.
While there is plenty of innovation coming from the supplier side, the rise of the grey market continues to be a concern for Australian bricks and mortar retailers who are competing with online sales of digital imaging products.
But according to Panasonic Australia’s general manager of marketing, Richard Tassone, combating the threat of grey imports is “something that the industry has been working at for a while” and Panasonic is working with its retail partners to attempt to tackle the issue.
“I think it’s come a long way to be truthful and we talk about this with our retailers quite often,” said Tassone. “The gap between Australian pricing and overseas pricing used to be a lot bigger and I think brands have worked very hard to try and get it closer.
“It will never be exact, it will never be one-for-one, and there are a lot of reasons for that, but it is getting better.”
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While online sales are a fact of life in the modern consumer electronics industry (whether through Australian clicks-and-mortar stores or through grey import channels), Tassone said the strength of the shopfront should not be ignored.
“To us, there’s always going to be a portion of people that want to purchase online, but the vast majority of people are still purchasing in-store,” he said. “And that’s important.
“There’s a lot of talk about online and all that sort of thing, but at the end of the day, by far the majority of people are still walking into the store, still talking to the store person and still purchasing through the store.”
While Tassone conceded online selling “does put pressure on the retailers” he said there was still a market for both shopping channels.
“We don’t want to talk up or down online,” he said, speaking of the importance of Australian retailers giving consumers the option of online convenience. “There is a market for both and the consumer will decide.
“But I think just to put it back in perspective, we’d say that still the majority of people are walking into the store to purchase. With our business, by far, people are still buying in-store, which is where they can get the right advice.”