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As I wrote in another thread, I'm visiting my relatives in Japan and had an opportunity to visit BIC Camera in Shinjuku, Tokyo, that's one of the major camera retailers there. I was kind of impressed by PENTAX/Ricoh presence here, and took cell phone pictures of PENTAX/RICOH shelves on the floor.

It seems as if the shelf width shown in this picture is the minimum unit for featuring one brand. In this case they're showing off the new K-70 and the new HD PENTAX-DA 55-300mmF4.5-6.3ED PLM WR RE. Special emphasis on landscape/outdoor photography, the board says "This is what outdoor-ready means".


These are PENTAX DSLR shelves using four shelf units. Half shelf for K-S2, half for K-70, two for K-3II and lenses combined, and one for K-1.


Theta, action/tough cameras and GR are all displayed in more than one places. The following picture shows you one theta shelf and one GR shelf with PENTAX rep. This guy was the only rep with manufacturer uniform I saw on the floor, no Nikon rep, no Canon rep, no nothing except PENTAX. I wanted to ask him something but the guy disappered quickly. Maybe it was lunch time for reps or something.



And another Theta and GR.



And yet another GR, though the camera was not available on this shelf.


Tough/action cameras.


1.5 shelves for tough/action cameras and half shelf featuring the complete Q system. I've heard that some stores don't feature Q system at all any more, so I was happy to see that BIC Camera still has it.


Anyway, PENTAX/RICOH footprint on the floor was not small (though not the largest either).

I liked the quality of promotional displays for the products that are pushed as of now (Theta, GR, and action/tough). They feature things that their cameras are good at, e.g. displaying some eye-catching underwater pictures at multiple places. They're screaming "hey look, our products are different, you can do THIS!". Unfortunately I cannot say the same for DSLR shelves, they looked kind of bland.

Thanks for reading a long post.

(And thanks to moderators for moving this to an appropriate place!)

Thanks for showing me the displays. They're very interesting!

Is this that unusual for Japan, though? My understanding was that Pentax had a significant market presence there (as opposed to in the US & Canada).

I'm glad that this was interesting to you!

To be honest, I have no idea if this is unusual in Japan (I've lived outside of Japan since late 90's), but as a person living in US now, I was impressed.

The floor area for PENTAX/RICOH seemed to be larger than Fuji, maybe larger than any of Olympus, Panasonic and Sony, if you combine DSLR/mirrorless/various compacts/Theta (but don't quote me on this). I wanted to ask the PENTAX rep if this was a temporary thing.

Thanks for the post.

Retail space devoted to Pentax like that is something we will never see in Australia.

Yodobashi camera in Akihabara has a quite similar amount of pentax products / product space.
They even had the 560mm 5.6 ready to try out on a white K-S2 when i was there in April.

Wow. I've never seen anything like that in the US. The most I've seen is a store that had a few K-50s and 4-5 lenses, none of which where high end except the 100 2.8 macro.
And that shop was 18 hours away.

Our local shop thinks they can still order Pentax products but they aren't even sure about that.

This is normal for the last few years. Pentax was always there in the shops during the Hoya years, but it was just a couple of cameras tucked away. Soon after Ricoh took over, starting with the K-30 and the Q-10, the store presence was dramatically improved, with big displays and video displays showing their TV commercials. I think it has improved again in the past couple of years with the GR and Theta earning some more space, and the DSLR range expanding.

Having said that, there are still smaller shops in the suburbs that don't stock Pentax or Ricoh at all, so you can't say they are on a par with Nikon and Canon. Another thing I have noticed is that small film/digital print shops usually sell Fujifilm cameras above all other brands. I think it is because Fuji provides the equipment and consumables for printing, and that gives them influence. So they have that extra channel that gets them into smaller shopping centres, while Ricoh is limited to the bigger electronics stores.

Looks like the shelf space overhere enough for the whole country. Nice.

Great for Japan, but Pentax/Ricoh needs to get busy in the USA and Canada. Usually there's...NO.....presence at all in North American shops. Camera store staff a lot of times will say that Pentax equipment is excellent...but the marketing isn't effective...or is non existent. Something needs to be done, IMO.

Maybe you could cross post this over here?
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/241085-wheres-yo...ml#post3737649

Maybe also worth noting, Pentax / Ricoh has two Service Centers in Tokyo where they inspect your cameras if you have complains (free of charge).

I went there recently when my HDMI port broke on my K-1. They said repair would take 7-10 days! I would have the pay though, since I have not bought my camera in Japan.

Here in Germany I am waiting now for 3 weeks already, without any notice about how long it will take to get repaired.

So the repair service in Japan is totally different from what we have here i suppose..

Thanks JPT, it's great to know that this isn't something special in Japan. I've never seen any PENTAX/RICOH camera in retail stores within 200 miles of where I live though I don't claim that I've made an exhaustive search.

Pentax left a bad taste in some smaller camera shops. Local shop used to carry Pentax. Back in 2007 or 2008, about the time I got my K20D, their stock and inventory requirements were raised so high they could no longer carry Pentax. Some new accessories even went into the bargain bin. They had stocked Pentax for years. I've not asked recently, but I don't think they will ever take a chance on Pentax again.