Freestyle Named Exclusive USA Distributor of EFKE Films and VARYCON Papers!

[Uncle Bill]

I just paid a visit to the JandC website a couple of minutes ago, all the Efke branded film is gone, replaced with adox which is the same stuff, am I worried, no. Its a branding exercise, Freestyle gets Efke, JandC gets adox and for the record I prefer JandC Photo for obvious reasons.

Bill

[MattCarey]

Originally Posted by MattCarey

I like Freestyle and JandC both.

JandC have that "we are a small group working on our passion (analogue photography)" attitude. I really like that. They also have the difficulty of a small group--sometimes running out of stock, sometimes not responding really fast to an email. This is not to say that Freestyle doesn't have the same problems sometimes.

I should point out--keeping items like this in stock is not an easy thing to do. My brother is an importer of items from a small country. It isn't like you just call them up and say, "ship 100 boxes of 4x5 Efke 100, 50 boxes of Efke 25, I'd like them here Tuesday." It takes patience to build up the relationship that John has obviously done.

How many times have we benefited from overstock/short date sales? Yes, sometimes we benefit from the difficulties, but we tend to only remember the times when he is out of stock--which really hasn't happened to me, I will add.

I will point out again that Freestyle has still not added any responses to this thread. I like them, but I really like JandC. I just wish I had more time to make photos so I could use more of his product!

Matt

[david b]

Knocking Freestyle (an APUG sponsor) for posting some news and then not coming back to comment about it is kind of silly.

We don't know who at Freestyle actually made the post and I'd much rather them spend time on running their business rather than worrying this thread.

Just my two cents.

[Jim Chinn]

Freestyle does not list Efke film in any sizes larger then 8x10 and list only 5x7 and 120 as "coming soon". In light of this I would say better to buy film branded Adox from J&C in all sizes to help insure continued supply of Efke emulsions (branded Adox) in ULF and other non-"standard" formats. It will be interesting to see if Freestyle actually takes the step of stocking formats other then 4x5,5x7,8x10 and 120 or if they simply are after the high volume, more profitable sales from traditional sizes.

[MattCarey]

Originally Posted by david b

Knocking Freestyle (an APUG sponsor) for posting some news and then not coming back to comment about it is kind of silly.

We don't know who at Freestyle actually made the post and I'd much rather them spend time on running their business rather than worrying this thread.

Just my two cents.

Don't take it as a knock of freestyle (a company I like) but instead as a compliment of JandC.

However, I for one really appreciate it when JandC take the time from their very busy schedule to monitor threads and give information and advice. If it wasn't for that, the market for Efke would probably not be very large right now.

Matt

[JHannon]

Originally Posted by copake_ham

Don't like "Brown" but ditto on your second suggestion. Perhaps the folks at Freestyle do not realize that USPS Priority Mail is out-sourced to FedEx for carriage?

Yep, you ship USPS Priority it goes via FedEx.

Just the FedEx planes are used. Packages are still sorted, handled and delivered by the USPS.

[Mark Layne]

Originally Posted by Donald Miller

My concern runs along that of David's. I have been very happy with the price, service, and availability for JandC. They brought this to us initially. It would take a lot for me to abandon them.

Exactly. And Freestyle has been known to offer these products before and drop them