I bought my first ‘enthusiast-level’ digital SLR last week. Hardly interesting, I know. You’re probably thinking “good for you, John!”, and reaching for your mouse to seek more quenching content. What I do believe to be interesting is how I came to make my selection, how I was able to get the best deal possible, and how those methods might be affecting the brand owner’s supply chain, and how it might alter how they look at demand planning and demand management in general. I’ll tell you the story, and then maybe you can comment on where this will take brand owners in the future.

I’ll start by killing the suspense – I bought a Nikon (pronounced knee-kon, for those of you who have never had the misfortune of mispronouncing their company name while visiting their headquarters in Japan). Specifically, it is a Nikon D90 with an 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED VR lens and the SB-900 Speedlight. I just had to add the grip attachment to give it that “photo-journalist”  look-and-feel (a guy thing? Maybe). Anyway, this decision started with a conversation with one of my close friends, Andrew, who has spend 17+ years as a serious hobbyist in photography. As you would expect, people tend to turn to their community of trusted friends and family for advise, and generally give high value to what they have to say. With Andrew, I learned more in 1 hour then I ever thought possible – starting with what questions I should be asking myself, to what products and technologies existed today. The most valuable bit of information I got from him, however, was a list of “strangers” that I should trust, and where I might find them.

It didn’t take me long to have mouse-in-hand, fingers-on-keys, and I would find myself engrossed in the opinions of Thom Hogan, and Gordon Laing, editor of Camera Labs. It didn’t stop there – I went on to read scads of opinions posted by hundreds of strangers, each equally passionate about their points of view. There were over 25,000 people in the dvinfo.net community to leverage; then the massive photo.net which boasts over 3,000 posts per day! Indeed, there is a wealth of detail, opinion, and what I perceive to be unbiased reviews to chose from – all well outside the control of the brand-owners themselves. I knew well in advance what I would like, and what compromises I would live with before choosing this product, and I had gotten there having never visited the Nikon website, or leaving my home office to visit a local store! Of course, manufacturers are providing their goods to experts like Thom and Gordon in the hopes they give their products a favourable review (I would want to believe without incentives to do so). They would have far less (if any) influence on the contributors of the hundreds of other massive communities eager to publish and defend their opinions in public forum.

Before leaving for “the store” to buy one, I was able to find the lowest price on the internet, giving me some indicator of “how low can they go” while leaving enough margin for the house, and enough for the maker. Without disclosing the end purchase price, suffice it to say that I am very pleased with what I paid, and wildly happy with the unit itself.

You might look at this story and think to yourself that marketing and branding is what is most affected by my method of buying a camera. I can’t help but wonder how my buying habits will change a brand owner’s demand planning process. I would posture that planning will become less relevant in the future, and responding to plan variance will become more so. Agree? Disagree?

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Tags: Demand management, Demand planning
Posted in Demand management
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