5DMiii at BnH or Amazon?

[cfb_jason]

Who do you think will get the camera first to ship out for pre-orders?

[Nikon]

BH must have a huge allotment, it still says pre-order on their site.  Amazon says the same thing.  I think you can pick either one, not a huge difference. Adorama on the other hand emailed me 8:30 this morning saying it is on back-order. I ordered it 10:30PM PST last night and they already used up their initial allotment with the pre-orders.  I am now leaning on BH, but I want to make sure it will not be put on back order as I need to travel at the end of March and I need the Mk3 with me

Who do you think will get the camera first to ship out for pre-orders?

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Amazon is usually last to ship, B&H or Adorama are first.  They will not cancel your order at the drop of a hat either.  Amazon is noted for canceling orders if the price changes, there is a typo in their listing, or if 30 days passes without being in stock.  This happened to me twice, never again.

[crasher7]

B&H's solid business practices make and keep me a customer, most times regardless of price. I will pay a few dollars more for peace of mind. So if it's  wash definitely go with them.

[Nikon]

Amazon is usually last to ship, B&H or Adorama are first.  They will not cancel your order at the drop of a hat either.  Amazon is noted for canceling orders if the price changes, there is a typo in their listing, or if 30 days passes without being in stock.  This happened to me twice, never again.

Argh! I just ordered from Amazon to take advantage of the free 2 day shipping with prime and now I read this.  I need to call BH to see if I will be on pre-order list before jumping ship again    I would be totally pissed if Amazon cancels an order, especially a pre-order on their own.

[neuroanatomist]

Amazon is usually last to ship, B&H or Adorama are first. 

Usually true, although I got my S100 from Amazon about a week before B&H started shipping them (even so, I got mine a few days after Best Buy had them in brick-and-mortar stores  )

[thatcherk1]

Usually true, although I got my S100 from Amazon about a week before B&H started shipping them (even so, I got mine a few days after Best Buy had them in brick-and-mortar stores  )

I ordered at about 10:30pm Pacific time last night and it said pre-order when I ordered it.  When I check my order status it says backordered.  Does BH differentiate between backorder and preorder in the order tracking after the purchase has been made?

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Amazon is usually last to ship, B&H or Adorama are first. 

Usually true, although I got my S100 from Amazon about a week before B&H started shipping them (even so, I got mine a few days after Best Buy had them in brick-and-mortar stores  )

They do seem to get power shots sooner, and its been three years since they cancelled my 7D pre-order that I had placed on or about announcement day.  They waited a couple of weeks to cancel it, so I re-ordered from Adorama.

Maybe Amazon will get pro models sooner now(I hope so), but their cancellations still anger many customers.

Try searching on    amazon pre-order cancelled     to see what I mean.

[h4ldol]

Amazon is usually last to ship, B&H or Adorama are first.  They will not cancel your order at the drop of a hat either. 

Amazon is great, I've never not been able to instantly cancel a preorder that is still waiting for the product to arrive.  With Amazon, you can easily get a full refund without restocking fee, although I think B&H does also, but with Amazon it's less hassle.  If I didn't move to Washington State I would order everything from them, but I do and so I preordered from B&H.  Ordering from Amazon with Prime shipping would be faster on the West Coast than UPS ground from NYC. 

[Helen Oster]

Adorama on the other hand emailed me 8:30 this morning saying it is on back-order. I ordered it 10:30PM PST last night and they already used up their initial allotment with the pre-orders. 

Actually, that isn't the case.

We do not yet know how many units we will receive in the first shipment - and if past releases are anything to go by, neither we, nor any other major retailer, will know how many have been allocated until the trailer is unloaded on the day of delivery!

A back-order email is generated automatically whenever an item is ordered but it isn't on the shelves. So you could receive a b/o email if the units were sitting in the Adorama unloading bay but hadn't yet been entered into our system.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Adorama on the other hand emailed me 8:30 this morning saying it is on back-order. I ordered it 10:30PM PST last night and they already used up their initial allotment with the pre-orders. 

Actually, that isn't the case.

We do not yet know how many units we will receive in the first shipment - and if past releases are anything to go by, neither we, nor any other major retailer, will know how many have been allocated until the trailer is unloaded on the day of delivery!

A back-order email is generated automatically whenever an item is ordered but it isn't on the shelves. So you could receive a b/o email if the units were sitting in the Adorama unloading bay but hadn't yet been entered into our system.

Thanks Helen. 

All the sellers I deal with send a out of stock or backorder e-mail. (I did get mine from Adorama).  And, as you say, no one yet knows the delivery allocations for the initial shipment, but even if the first shipment is missed, a second one will likely come two or three weeks later.  Canon will be almost be certainly making North of 30,000 units a month (Nikon is said to be making that many D800's, and canon will probably be making more), so the first day pre-orders are not going to be long in arriving. 

It is amazing to me that Adorama was able to get those first units charged, processed, and shipped in just a few days.  I'm sure that many long days were put in by the staff.

I ordered my 5D MK II on the first day from Adorama, and I understood that it might not be in the first shipment, but it was delivered from the first batch.  It has never has a glitch for the past 3+ years.  I'm on the pre-order list!

[Maui5150]

Amazon is usually last to ship, B&H or Adorama are first.  They will not cancel your order at the drop of a hat either. 

Amazon is great, I've never not been able to instantly cancel a preorder that is still waiting for the product to arrive.  With Amazon, you can easily get a full refund without restocking fee, although I think B&H does also, but with Amazon it's less hassle.  If I didn't move to Washington State I would order everything from them, but I do and so I preordered from B&H.  Ordering from Amazon with Prime shipping would be faster on the West Coast than UPS ground from NYC.

Not to mention that with Amazon Prime, you can get Next Day shipping for $3.99 per item.

I buy a TON of things off of Amazon and have had no issues with pre-orders or significant differences from when an item is available compared to other sources.  I also think that any of those differences has a lot more to deal with the supplier itself, than the store front

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Amazon is usually last to ship, B&H or Adorama are first.  They will not cancel your order at the drop of a hat either. 

Amazon is great, I've never not been able to instantly cancel a preorder that is still waiting for the product to arrive. 

The issue is that Amazon cancels pre-orders without asking you.  You might be waiting 3 days or 3 weeks, and suddenly, your pre-order is cancelled by them.  Usually it happens due to simple things like typo's in the listing, but they may also cancel if the order is not filled within 30 days, that seems to be sporadic and is based on consumer laws requiring shipping within 30 days or a confirmation by the customer.

It is extremely frustrating to get on a pre-order list on the first day, and then 3 weeks or more later have your pre-order cancelled and, in effect, being told to go to the back of the line.  In my case, I then went to Adorama and there was no problem getting my 7D in short order, in fact, before Amazon started shipping them.

I do use Amazon Prime, and its nice.  They have a big advantage in that they have warehouses all over the country, this means that there is a warehouse two days or less by ground to you.  Thus, they can negotiate two day shipping with fedex and UPS, or send by USPS and the shipment will not cost them more than ground shipping.  If they are out of stock, then it comes by air from further away.

Adorama and B&H have only the New York shipping location, so they pay more for shipping to customers that are far away. 

Another thing to consider is the complexity that Amazon has with very expensive inventory that is prone to pilfeage and getting new products safely to their many warehouses in a timely manner as well as keeping track of all of it.  Its much simpler and more reliable to have it all in one place, and even then, errors in inventory count happen.

[CanonLITA]

Yesterday I asked BH when the 5D3 will be available and whether they will be able to fulfill all the pre-orders out of the first shipment. They said it will be available at the end of March and, obviously, we will never know if all the pre-orders will be fulfilled until then. But they also added that they got a second shipment of G1X in short order, kind of implying that for the 5D3 will be the same.

For what it's worth..

[CanineCandidsByL]

And since someone else mentioned bestbuy...they have pre-order too.  Plus 18 months interest free financing and a % back via their reward zone card.  Normally you can get a better deal with cash as B&H, but not when the item is new.  BB is where I went and hopefully I won't be any later than anyone else.