p.9 #1 · Leica M11-P as a Travel Camera: A Love–Hate Experience
I don't see that right sizing your manufacturing capacity as being the same as purposely withholding inventory from the market as creating scarcity in the same way.
You can pretty much always buy any current Leica camera or lens. Except of course limited production versions once they have reached their pre announced run size. There are no artificial wait lists like there are in other luxury marketing schemes like watches and handbags.
There is a huge difference between Leica's strategy and that of DeBeers and it's CSO organization. A few years ago DeBeers started manufacturing lab diamonds in an attempt to drive prices down to the point that other producers went bankrupt. That attemt failed badly. The CSO often formented unrest in non monopoly producer countries to inhibit production. Leica has never attempted any of these kinds of things.
p.9 #2 · Leica M11-P as a Travel Camera: A Love–Hate Experience
We are talking here about a different kind of artificial scarcity—specifically, one driven by price. Essentially, this means that while the demand is there, it is regulated "naturally" through a "special" pricing strategy. Why go to the trouble of producing higher volumes—and, thanks to the resulting lower production costs, enabling people to buy a Leica who would love to own one but simply can't afford it? We could do that right now. But we prefer to produce fewer units at exorbitant prices, which makes them all the more attractive to people who don't have to worry about money. It is a very simple calculation, and a common one for luxury goods. In other words: what do we care about the average photographer? Not a damn thing. We care about the return on investment. And ultimately, that is a perfectly legitimate and understandable strategy for a profit-oriented company—especially since everyone knows that the purchasing power and willingness to spend among the wealthy depend far less on the general state of the economy or market conditions.
