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Thursday 28 March 2013

TV Dragon Breathes New Life Into Jessops

'The collapsed high street camera chain Jessops is being relaunched today by Peter Jones, of Dragon's Den fame.'
More here on Sky News.

I felt sorry for Jessops when they went under and am pleased that they may return to the high street; we need proper camera shops not just Internet suppliers. Jessops had mostly knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff and you could at least handle the cameras you were thinking of buying, something you can't do on the Internet.

However many years ago, I was very keen on photography and saw something play out many times... On New Oxford Street in London, there was an independent camera shop and a Jessops almost opposite it. It was very common to see people spend an hour or more in the independent shop, playing with the cameras and asking technical questions before saying thanks and going over the road to buy it at the cheaper Jessops. The independent camera shop closed down, I presume because it couldn't compete with Jessops on price. Now Jessops has suffered as people used them as the showroom but bought online.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you mean Jacobs? It had a good secondhand section but the staff were a bit grumpy! I used to do a little camera shop tour of the area. York cameras near the British Museum were the best.

Not a sheep said...

Jacobs! I think you're correct, that's a name from the past. Don't remember York cameras, are they still there?

Norman said...

Yes on Bury Place. Their responce to the demise of the two J's best described with a German word I can't spell!

Not a sheep said...

I think you must mean schadenfreude - a great word.