My current digital camera is one I bought in New York City a few years ago, at a spectacular store called B&H Photo Video. I was reminded of B&H by Joel Spolsky's recent article highlighting the fact that Circuit City went out of business yet B&H Photo Video still thrives. The reason for this is that B&H is an awesome place to go shopping for photo and video equipment.

I was visiting the USA and on the look-out for a digital camera. I visited all the usual big-name consumer electronics stores and the technology counters in department stores, but was continually disappointed by the apparent lack of sales expertise in the products. When I ended up in New York and met up with Zack, he recommended B&H to me, he said it was the place to go for a camera. It turned out I had walked past the store earlier that very day, without so much as noticing. I'm observant like that. (Maybe it was because they didn't have a shiny store-front with lots of eye-catching technology right in the window, like all the other over-priced tourist-trap camera stores in New York City.)

Zack was right. This store was huge, and had all sorts of photo/video related stuff inside. I went in and started looking at cameras. The nearest salesperson closed a sale and then asked me if I needed assistance so I started talking to him about the cameras I was considering. He clearly knew what he was talking about when he started talking about comparative CCD sensor sizes between the models, then breifly paused to help another customer change the language on a camera from Japanese — he seemed to know the menu structure on that particular model off by heart, since I'm pretty sure he wasn't fluent in Japanese.

Most of the employees were Jewish and the store ran to military precision. The workflow was like this:

1. As soon as you go near the cameras some guy starts explaining every feature to you, answers all your questions, and generally knows what he's talking about (most of the people at other places I'd been to didn't know the cameras that intimately)
2. You eventually decide on a camera, after having the sales assistant explain the intricate details and relative merits of your candidate selections
3. He scribbles down some product codes for your chosen camera and accessories and tells you to take it to a guy at a computer terminal
4. The guy at the computer punches in the barcodes and takes some details down, then says "It'll be here in a minute"
5. Some other guy brings over your order in a green crate, with a receipt
6. You take the receipt to the payment counter (without the goods) where you pay using the method of your choice and get a receipt
7. Finally, you take your receipt to the goods counter and pick up your neatly packed order.

I'm not sure why their system is so arcane, but I expect it's to deal with high demand situations. I was there at closing time on a weekday, and people were buying cameras at the rate of one every few minutes. At peak times I expect their system deals admirably. (Joel postulates that the system is an anti-theft measure, by involving multiple staff in each sale, but I doubt that's the reason.)

Each of the "counters" I mentioned above have an airport-check-in-style zig-zag queue cordoned off in front and room for about 5-10 staff members at the counter.

They also have an elaborate roof-mounted transport system for moving orders out of the stock rooms.

If you're looking for a camera and happen to be in or near New York City, go to B&H. Heck, go there even if you're not looking for a camera, just for the cultural experience!