Camera Store - The Hell of Retail

A Statistical Anomaly

How much money does my store make per day? How much do I sell per day? How much money is spent on each transaction?

Of course, the answer to each of these questions is some kind of distribution. The first two questions may have distributions that are vaguely Gaussian-like, but the last one is far from it. Most of the people who walk in the door either want film developed or digi-prints, or they buy expensive equipment, so most transactions are either in the $10-$30 range or in the $300-$600 range.

In any case, any distribution has its tails, and boy did I get a "several standard deviations away from mean" one today. Where do I start...

Just as I get in, late in the morning (I closed the store today, so I was not there at opening), a lady calls asking whether we have the Canon Pro1 or some Samsung camera I'd never heard of. I say no, we don't, but we have some LIKE them, that are much better deals too. The Canon is an awesome camera, but way overpriced, I'd be happy to show her some better deals that do abou the same thing. "Like what?". Well, we have a couple of Fujis that are similar... "Oh, oh, wait, what's the model of the Fuji?". I was thinking the S7000... "Yeah, yeah, I read about that one too!" Good, so she knows I'm not trying to trick her or anything, and what I tell her about the Fuji matches what she has read. She needs the camera for studio work, portraits and so on, and she also needs something that is easy to use, another two reasons why the S7000 is perfect for her. It's what WE use to take passport pictures - most of us are far from expert photographers but the pictures always come out very nice. AND, it costs half as much as a Pro1 (I can't say this enough, Canons are rip-offs). "All right, I'll stop by today to get one". Great, I'll set one aside. Our last one too.

She calls again later. "What about the Digital Rebel? Is it a better camera?" Well, of COURSE it's a better camera, but it's an SLR. "What's an SLR?". I tell her, concluding with "If you want something that is easy to use, an SLR is not what you want". Meanwhile, I'm thinking: I get more comission selling Fuji than selling Canon, but all my performance-tracking parameters will look great if I sell a digital SLR... "But the Rebel will take better pictures, right? And it would be the better camera to have in the studio, right?" Right. "Because my friend says that, if I'm gonna spend $900 on a Pro1, I might as well buy a Rebel". You have a very smart friend. "But the thing is, I don't have quite enough money for the Rebel, I'd have to wait till the end of the week, until this person pays me on Thursday... Could you hold one till then?". Um, I suppose. But you know, we offer zero-percent-interest financing for up to a year. "REALLY? So I could take it now and not pay right away?" Correct, if you are approved, a process that takes a form being filled out and my making a 5-minute phone-call. "All right! Put aside a Rebel for me, I'll be in today!"

She comes in a few hours later. I show her the Rebel. I remind her that for studio work, she would need a remote control, and she says I'm right. As I go to get it, she says she is also thinking about getting a smaller camera, to take to parties and so on. Something that fits in the pocket but takes sharp pictures. I tell her about the Sony P100 for three or four sentences, she holds it for a few seconds, and says "All right, I'll take one". At this point I'm getting REAL excited. You know, you could get a P120 that's the same, but has an extra battery and a leather case for only $50 more. "OK, sounds like a deal to me. Oooh, look, what's that behind you! An underwater camera!" That's right. But you know, Sony makes a little plastic box that goes around the P100, making it an underwater camera. "Oooh, really! Do you have those in the store?" Afraid not, I'd have to order one for you, it'd be here by the end of the week. "Sounds great!" And you need a bigger memory stick than the one that comes in the box. "You're right".

Back to the Rebel, I tell her she needs an extra battery ("You're right"), a one-gig card (She got two 512s instead, despite that being more expensive, because it would be easier for her to keep her pictures organized), a damage-protection warranty ("Oh yeah, you shoud see how clumsy I get with expensive equipment")... "And I wish there were a book or something on how to use this camera, something friendlier than the manual"... I pull out just such a book, written for beginner users who want to learn how to use a Digital Rebel.

"Now, while I'm here, let me see if I can knock some other people off my list...", and she buys a reflecting telescope. She then decides a digital picture frame would be a good way to look at her pictures while away from a computer. And from now till Christmas, we offer a full $150 rebate on the HP140 photo-printer, making it practially free. "What do you mean, practically free?". You pay $150 now, but you get a $75 rebate from us, a $25 rebate from us, and an $50 rebate from HP, so you get all your money back as checks in the mail. "Well, you can't beat 'free'...". She also gets a couple of lens-cleaning kits, and a membership card, and a bag for the Rebel.

I scan all the stuff, we fill out the financing form, I call the financing place, she is approved, and so she walks away from the store with three huge bags (well, me carrying two huge bags, and her carrying one, to her car, where a pair of very friendly Rottweilers await patiently. Very sweet dogs. I mean it). She got a Rebel, two 512mb CF cards, a bag, a book, two lens-cleaning kits, a remote, a Sony P120 (with extra battery and case included), a 256mb Memory Stick Pro, a digital frame, a reflecting telescope, a photo printer, and the warranty and the membership card... about $2500 worth of stuff.

Afterwards, I had my manager take a picture of me holding up the super-long receipt like a master fisherman standing next to a Marlin.

So from now on we'll be making a point of telling people we have one-year interest-free financing, if there is any chance at all that it will trigger someone else to go on a twenty-five-hundred-dollar shopping spree...

posted by Remus