Alternatives to B&H for Gear

I've had it. Admittedly I have a slow dialup connection, but I can't be the only one in the world.

The B&H site may be marvelous, but it is so "rich" that with my connection it is
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

It took 28 minutes for a search to be loaded.
It took 5 minutes to add the item to my shopping cart.
I'm 36 minutes into the checkout process, still waiting for the first page to load after login. E-stinking-NUFF.

Perhaps it's time to get satellite internet? Time is money, and if you're losing that much time to waiting for dialup.. I think the cost of satellite internet would more than pay for itself.

That ducks the question.

Sure, I can spend $2500 for the satellite equipment PLUS installation fees.

I think instead I'll switch vendors when I find one with a streamlined site. A little extra charge for items from another vendor goes a loooooong way toward defraying the cost of satellite.

Hank, another big store similar to B&H that I'd recommend is Adorama. I actually have switched from one to the other several times if one place has something the other doesn't, has specials going on, or is cheaper! Another place I've heard positives on is Hunt's.

I have yet to find anything on BH that you can't get on Amazon, not to say there isn't something that they don't offer. I'd give it a shot.

Instead of trying the internet, why not just use their 800 number and call in the order. That's what I used to do when I had a dial-up connection when living in the boonies of Texas.

I've used Calumet Photographic as well as Adorama and Amazon. No complaints but, Adorama is closed in observance of Jewish Holidays. Good Luck

How about just giving B&H a call and ordering over the phone. Guessing that wouldn't take 36 minutes to place an order.

Both Adorama and Samy's are reliable and good companies to work with. I'd be happy to give you the contact info for my rep at Adorama via email.

Max

I would call them.

How about just giving B&H a call and ordering over the phone. Guessing that wouldn't take 36 minutes to place an order.

That's after comparing features and making a decision at their site, right?

Thanks for the reco's on alternate vendors. I'll try their sites, and may the fastest on my ancient system win.

I did some mental math, and if merchandise from the faster site costs me 10% more than B&H, my payback on a $3,000 satellite internet system needed to use B&H is something like $30,000 in purchases.

Adorama and Hunt"s near Boston are both good. You might consider phoning their 800# to place an order instead of doing it all over the web.

I used to order stuff by US Mail based on advertisements in the back (half) of Popular Photography. Shut up man.

Pete D.

Hank, on another thread you wrote that you charged $1,500 per day for work. Assuming an 8 hour day, that means you value your time at $187.5/hour. I don't know the relative speeds of satellite vs dial up.. but let's assume dial-up is 20% the speed of satellite, ie. what would take you an hour on dial up would only take 12 minutes on satellite, so you're wasting 48 minutes of time waiting for stuff to load. Given your time valuation above, that costs you $150. In 20 hours of internet usage you will have paid back your $3,000 investment. Just sayin'

Actually it's over $1,500. But that's shooting time mostly from our studio an hour away on $5/gallon Alaskan gasoline. I do much of my non-shooting, non-compensated work at home. Add a minimum of 2 hours at $200+ per hour to drive to town for high speed access to the calcs along with the loss of productivity while driving.

The easy solution is simply to do my shopping at a vendor with a faster site. That's all I asked for. Not a question of my business sense or spending strategies.

The bottom line is that anyone building a "rich" site for their wares is writing off the slow end of the web spectrum. Think of the potential customers who won't even bother to sit through a 15-minute front page, much less navigate through all those rich steps. They can write us geezers off for sure, but we can write them off too. Who gets hurt more?

I'm done. Folks have answered my questions and generously provided useful answers. Thanks!

Not loading images would certainly speed up your page loading.

In Internet Explorer you can disable image loading with just a few mouse clicks. - "Tools" > "Internet options" > Select "Advanced" tab > Under "Multimedia", uncheck "Show Images" > Click "OK".

In Firefox - "Tools" > "Options" > "Content" > Uncheck "Load images automatically".

In Opera -. "Menu" > "Page" > "Images" > "No images."

I'd like to put a plug in for Hunt's also. While B&H is arguably the "gold standard", I do most of my business with Hunt's because of their strong support for the nature photography arena. They are frequent participants at many nature photography events and also sponsor some activities themselves. They are regulars at NANPA events (an organizaton I strongly recommend for anybody using this site). In my experience they have also always matched B&H pricing if for some reason theirs is higher. BUT! I have no clue as to whether their internet service, or anybody's for that matter, would be faster because I do all my orders by phone calling John Duggan or Gary Farber.

I have also used Adorama on occasion if Hunt's doesn't carry an item or is out of stock and I'm in a hurry and found them satisfactory. I've used Midwest Photo in Ohio also but not for a while as their pricing is routinely higher. They do run sales from time to time with good pricing however.

$3000.00 sounds awfully high for satellite internet, a consequence of being in Alasks, perhaps? Our Hughesnet service here in the Adirondacks (20 mi. south of Canada) cost about $200.00 to install, and sometimes Hughesnet has promotionals with lower installation fees. A basic plan with 200 Mb download allowance costs around $60.00/mo. and is adequate for all internet activities except downloading very large audio/video files or online gaming. Sites like B&H com up pretty quickly.

Hank said:

That's after comparing features and making a decision at their site, right?

I don't know about you, but I get a complete photo catalog from B&H in the mail about every 3 months. There are tons of sources of information that don't require perusing the web. Of course, the web is far more flexible than most of them, but if you're stuck with a slow connection.......

I mostly use Kenmore Camera. Their website isn't fancy but it gets the job done. They sell new and used equipment at prices that are equal to B&H for the most part. It is cheaper to have them ship items to me rather than take the ferry across Puget Sound to their location just north of Seattle.

I've been using Adorama for a a few years now after switching from B&H. There are a couple of reasons for this, I find there customer service better and easier to deal with, the return policy is the best anywhere, they don't even require an RMA, just send it back and that's it.
Another thing, while it's true they do close for Jewish holidays, they do at least leave there online order system on so I can get my order in while I'm thinking about it and they ship it first thing when they open. B&H does not even permit ordering which I always found to be extremely annoying to say the least.

Another vote for Kenmore Camera.

Hank, I'm a firm B&H fan but on occasion I use Adorama. Caution: If you deal with them on the phone, my son says, they're likely to want to upsell you, which B&H never does. And I echo those who put in a plug for Hunt's. They do a lot of cooperation with the camera club I belong to and they're nice to deal with.

Hi Hank
I didn't read all the other responses so maybe somebody else has already mentioned this - if so, sorry for the repetition.

I am a long time B&H regular customer. They have just about everything, and good prices, and their customer service is excellent. You know all this already. They send me a paper catalog from time to time. Surely they send one to you, too. You don't need no stinkin' internet. You can deal with them by phone.

The internet is a great boon and convenience, but it's not the be all and end all. Don't you remember the days before dial-up?

I have purchased all my photo equipment (including darkroom equipment) from B&H since the late 70's. I would use no other but I don't have connection issues either. When I lived in NJ way back when before internet, I used to love to go to their NYC store for the cultural experience or just phone in and order.

I actually meet one of the family owners last year in Boothbay Maine at Ocean Point. He approached me and asked about my photo equipment. He also wanted to know what to see and do in Boothbay, so I told him in great detail. After we got taking about equipment, he mentioned his family owned B&H. A short while after he left, his wife came down to the rocks to talk to me more about the scene I was trying to photographic. Just an interesting encounter and not relevant to your issue.

BTW - I have also received their paper catalog for ions. Hopefully there is a way to get better connectivity. I doubt the sites others have mentioned are any better speed wise but I could be wrong.

LOL, thanks for brightening up my morning with this thread, Hank
Im also a dedicated B&H customer. I got annoyed once or twice when they were closed and i was in a hurry so ive also shopped at Canoga Camera (CA) mainly cause i was born in Canoga Pk but i got similar prices/service there.
You should move to CO--we get free sat installation here. im using another (free installation) right now on my laptop remotely with a Novatel card ($50/month--GREAT for storm chasing!)

I second Stan's recommendation of Canoga Camera. Always great service from them. I have found some prices lower than B&H, but mostly they are very similar. Unfortunately, as a smaller operation, they do not have the same wide selection as B&H.