The Pixel Of Retail Strength

By Greg Scoblete On Jul 22 2002 - 6:00am

Olympus was able to move an impressive number of its high-end E10 digital SLRs through consumer electronics retailers, as well as through more traditional photo specialty channel partners. That fact says a number of things about how digital cameras are sold and who's buying them.

"We have a lot of the early adopters in our stores, and they're the megapixel counters," said Kristin Elder, senior buyer, Imaging, Good Guys. The E10 was one of the first 4-megapixel cameras and was very attractive to the megapixel conscious, she said.

Elder noted that while the $2,000 price tag limited total unit sales, add-on sales with the E10 were particularly strong. "We've found that people buying the E10 were buying lots of additional accessories, because at that point money was not really a major factor," she said.

A variety of technologies were also instrumental in propelling sales, according to Elder. Olympus' optics, particularly the ED glass lens, helped sell the more astute consumers. The choice to go with two media slots for additional memory capacity (one slot for CompactFlash. the other for SmartMedia) was also a plus, considering the large files generated by the camera's 4-megapixel CCD.