Why Kodak, Why?

[Will2]

I was just getting to like the online ordering thing through the Kodak store. I guess they are trying to distance themselves from Kodak's other products.

They promise that it doesn't effect availability of any stock. Just gotta use the 800 number again.

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/About/Th ... /index.htm

[jpolzfuss]

I guess they are trying to distance themselves from Kodak's other products.

To me it looks more like they want to go straight from insolvency to bankruptcy: In order to get profitable again, they need to sell their products. Instead they're now trying to reduce the number of direct orders... strange! Maybe someone should check the bank-accounts of the guy/gal that made this decision!

[aj]

I guess they are trying to distance themselves from Kodak's other products.

To me it looks more like they want to go straight from insolvency to bankruptcy: In order to get profitable again, they need to sell their products. Instead they're now trying to reduce the number of direct orders... strange! Maybe someone should check the bank-accounts of the guy/gal that made this decision!

And what do you expect to find on such a bankaccountlisting?

[jpolzfuss]

Unless the decision-maker is insane or incompetent (or both), he gets paid by someone else to ruin Kodak. (E.g. by another company that thinks that this might lower the price for Kodak's patents.)

(The only reasonable reasons to shut down this service are either that Will2 was nearly the only one using this service or that this service now belongs to another part of Kodak so that the "professional part" would have to pay the other part for this service, but can't afford it any more.)

[Will2]

Good insight on the splitting of the company. I just wish the motion picture division would setup an online ordering system.

I've talked to enough Kodak people over the years, it could also be that they just don't want to bother with small orders. They've laid off all of the NYC staff; Panavision is running the pickup window for Kodak in NYC now. That's where my orders always came out of. They were never setup for the little orders hobbyists would place; they like people ordering 50,000 feet of a stock.

[nickrapak]

The Kodak online store was not run by Kodak, but by an outside contractor that shipped its products out of Tennessee. The old education store was direct through Kodak, but that's been gone about 2 years. My guess is that the contractor didn't want to deal with stocking thousands of dollars worth of film, so they told EK that they weren't willing to stock cine film anymore.

[jpolzfuss]

Thanks nickrapak. This makes sense.

[aj]

Just check eBay. In Europe there are numerous resellers who have very nice prices and ship quick and cheap.

[Will2]

Just check eBay. In Europe there are numerous resellers who have very nice prices and ship quick and cheap.

Buying film isn't a problem, it was just a nice convenience to have the full range of Kodak stocks available for online ordering since their phone ordering is always laborious and painful because you have to give them all your information every time. They only did accounts for big orders.

Plenty of places to buy Super 8 and even some 16mm online in the U.S. still.