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Not aggressive enough
I've received some information about what Canon's favourite competitors are doing to stimulate sales this Christmas season. Both Panasonic and Nikon are offering very substantial dollar spiffs on cameras sold. This is taking place in both Canada and the USA. For anyone in retail, this plays a BIG role in what cameras they pull of the shelf first.
A Wolf employee told me his co-workers are definitely getting geared up to sell Nikon products. If that can pay for the Christmas gifts, why wouldn't they?
Canon's approach? A rewards program. Sell $25K of stuff and get a free SD1100. A slight exageration, but not by much.
5D Preorder Legal Issues
I spoke to a lawyer friend about the whole issue of pre-orders and whether retailers are entering into a binding agreement about price. His answer after a subtle laugh; “No”. In Canada at least, pre-orders are technically not legal, so there is no binding agreement.
If anyone wants to dispute this, I'm all ears. You lawyers love to stir it up!
cr
I’m telling you, Nikon is very aggressive and so far it worked well for them… Canon will have to wake up somewhere in time… what are they doing. I’ve never seen that much unsatisfied Canon customer (pro and pro-sumer). Not talking about the people switching from C to N… again, I believe that the last 12 months is by far the worst for Canon 1K$+ camera (except for the 1DsMIII perhaps, but at that price they don’t sell much anyway).
I’m thinking of switching to the Nikon D300. It seems Nikon isn’t having leadership problems like Canon is having. This sucks. Canon stock goes down, 50D quality issues, leadership problems. . . I’m going to have to sell my whole system.
Dollars spiffs doesn’t mean you benefit as a customer in pricing. It just more kickbacks for the people who sell them.
I agree. Announcing the 5D2 but not being able to put it in every shop by the dozen with Christmas coming up, is about the most stupid thing Canon could do.
This leaves only the 50D for Christmas special sales – in contrast to Nikon where the D700 should be timed just about right to sell big time in the prosumer range.
nooooo !!! not another one… (to Peter)
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always shot Canon. My first SLR was a Canon AE-1 Program. I still use it today, but what Canon is doing is bad for business. What are they doing?
Mib, you sir have it right.
Want to move camera’s in this economy, knock down the price. I don’t really care how much the sales guy wants to push Nikon, it’s not going to affect my decision. Canon knows this. They are positioned a bit differently than Nikon.
Canon has their Entry, Pro-Sumer, Basic Full Frame, and Full Pro models.
Nikon deliberately cripples their entry to get down to a lower pricepoint. This means they need a lower pseudo entry camera for those who can’t afford $1500 but don’t want to buy crippled crap. Then comes the semi-pro prosumer and Pro stuff. The full frame stuff over $2000 just sells itself. No salesman at a Wolf camera is going to get someone to move up that much, unless they already knew what they wanted.
It’s a good strategy to give incentives to the sales people to move your camera instead of the competition’s, but it only works on a select audience. The farther up the market segment, the less this works. I talked to a guy at a Wolf, he said they got 5 D700 kits and sold them all without breaking any out to display. Someone walked in, asked if they had one and then paid. It’s not a car or plasma TV. People who buy a $3000 camera know what they want.
Also, let’s not forget that the majority of camera’s are sold Online or through a general electronics/big box retailers (80% according to CNET) – these places don’t have sales people that participate in these promotions. Canon, if you’re reading – and I hope you aren’t – don’t stoop to their level; pass the savings on to the consumer!
For me, Canon really started to decrease in my mind when they missed the 5D Mk?? release last year, pushing the cycle to more than 3 years. That was bad, really bad. Missing sales, creating unhappy customers and opening widely the door to Nikon competition.
Did you mention to the lawyer that you spoke with that deposits have been taken on these pre-orders. I think the legal issues involved here are tricky because there seems to be a mix of federal laws and provincial laws that could come into play. This price increase might be legal in some provinces and not others.
Besides the point that this price issue may or may not be legal the biggest issue is the breach of trust between distributor and customer. It’s unbelievable to me that Henry’s and Vistek aren’t honoring the pre-orders they’ve made.
All that the pre-order does for you is reserves your spot in the long long long line-up for the camera. You are not entitled to anything else, despite what you may lead yourself to believe. As a consumer, protected under the consumer protection act, you have the right to -at any time- revoke your pre-order and these company’s will reimburse your money paid, but the company has the right to make the price whatever the hell they want. Heck, if they wanted to, even though Canons Recommended price is 3099, they could charge all these people waiting 4099. THAT would really make them a questionable company.
The price on the pre-order is an “estimated price” and company’s reserve rights to change that at any given time unless it says “quotation” or “bill of sale” and I believe (in Henry’s case at least) it says “order” and does not call itself anything else on the piece of paper.
In the free market and with the US economy going down… hopefully retailers who took pre-orders will try to gain brownie points (and/or customer loyalty) by honoring the original price.
It’s things like this that keep me loyal to Newegg, although with a budget crunch I occasionally order cheaper from elsewhere.
^^^ I don’t think the pricing in the U.S is the problem. It’s Canon Canada the one raising prices.
When I worked retail, selling cameras at a large, Maryland-based U.S.-based camera chain, I can tell you that Canon USA never put squat in the pot in terms of sales incentives “SI”s we called ’em. Fuji, on the other hand, well you could do quite well for yourself in a day if you sold a few of the Fuji package deals. This was over 14 years ago, mind you, but….
I keep seeing complaints about how Canon took 3 years to update the 5D. I can’t imagine that people who bought the 5D 3 years ago were all that disappointed to know their camera didn’t depreciate as much as the D100/D200.
Considering it still does its job as a 12MP FF camera…
Would at least be nice if Vistek would bother to return my calls,messages and e-mails about this…… I used to have them pegged as a quality establishment but that’s a rapidly changing opinion.
“Anonymous” – First it’s funny how all the people who work for Henry’s or Vistek or any other distributor OR have a viewpoint that the distributors shouldn’t honor the pre-orders all seem to comment anonymously. It seems to suggest that even these distributor-evangelists are ashamed of what their employers have done increasing pre-order pricing. I think everyone is entitled to an opinion and that no matter what happens in this debate your opinion should be respected but at least have enough pride to stand behind your opinion.
With respect to my pre-order the receipt I got from Vistek says “Sales Order” at the top. It lists specifically the Canon EOS 5D Mark II in the Item description at a price of $2799.00. At the bottom of page it says “Payments Received = $559.80” and “Outstanding Amount = $2379.15” (with the GST being $139.95).
Nowhere does it say that this is a “pre-order” with an “estimated sales price” or that “price is subject to change”. There is no fine print anywhere on the page or the attached visa slip. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that I should need to pay more in the future (besides the outstanding amount) or that the price could increase.
The new invoice I received does indicate that the price is subject to increase, but not the old one.
I think this is definitely going to be a case of Vistek differentiating between what they are legally allowed to do and what they should do that’s best for the customer (and future business).
Maybe its legal for them to change the price, maybe it isn’t. I think most people will complain but I don’t think a lot of people will attempt legal action even if the price increase is illegal. I think the big thing that Vistek and other distributors need to consider is that regardless of what the piece of paper (order/invoice/receipt) technically is, everyone thinks that fundamentally it is a ticket reserving their camera at a fixed price. Failing to honor pre-orders at this point definitely seems like a huge blow to their credibility among an advanced amateur – pro user crowd who pre-ordered. This is the segment of people who will be buying more expensive lenses and lighting equipment from them. If this was just over a rebel, I don’t think distributors would have to worry about as much repeat business. But I can gaurantee I won’t be buying a single thing from Vistek from this point on, and I’ll be telling every other pro-photographer I know about my experience.
I also don’t understand why so many Sales Agents agree with what’s being done here. Why are you the ones posting comments on here and not the executives who made the decision not to honor pre-order prices. Most of the Sales agents I know are great people who are also photographers. I just can’t picture them tolerating being told to treat their customers this way. Are there any Sales people out there who are upset that their distributors raised the price on pre-orders?
I also haven’t had any phone calls or e-mailes returned by Vistek or Canon.
OK, this is from the first time poster who just cannot listen to all the pixel-peepers, complainers and other types of sorry losers out there.
Canon “missed” 5D update?!?!?!
What the heck?!?!?!
Are you trying to say that the quality of photographs you were taking (if the likes of you are actually taking any) suddenly dropped after using a camera for 2 years and not upgrading it?!?!?! Get real, all those AF issues, high ISO issues, whatever issues don’t stop anybody who does real job with their Canons, Nikons, Mamiyas, Contaxes (I have and use all of those) from carrying out their assignments.
Take 5D for example – superior high-ISO performance for several years… yes, it has been surpassed now, but does it suddenly mean that it is not capable of making high-ISO shots anymore, just like that, out of the blue?!?!?! I have been taking some great live performance photographs with it and am still doing so, they did not deteriorate overnight, not at all. I pre-ordered 5D MkII, by the way. Moreover, 5D’s autofocus works just fine in the low-light, thank you.
Sorry for the incoherence, I guess I just could not take it anymore and had to vent a bit.
Respect to all and let’s continue making photographs,
Danijel
Danijel, if you refer to my post, my point has never been an amount of pixels issue. I had a 5D and it was a great camera 3 years ago and it’s still doing great photos today, but obviously it’s not “that much” of a great camera today (based on feature, speed and all the whistle and bells).
16MP would be enough for me, but having a camera with a decent transfer speed is a must in 2008 (almost 2009). Bigger buffer and better LCD is also nice and part of what you would expect now. Seals are a bonus. Liveview, movies… not sure yet, never tried a camera with that, except my SD400 !!!
I never said that the 5D was bad, but the 3 years gap is definetely a Canon issue regarding revenue and position in the market.
Hope it clears my point of view.
Rox
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Wanna move..please do. The more people move to Nikon the better for me. It should wake up Canon and save me money.
My pre-order is with Henry’s completed Sept 22. Got a notice after I looked online and asked about price protection since there is no mention of price change on my invoice. Was told quite directly I will have to pay an extra 300.
SO my problem is this, it took a year of a strong Canadian dollar against USD for our prices to drop and 2 weeks with a negative differential and we get screwed.
Wayne
How much profit does anyone think there is in a 5D , or for that matter any high end camera? High end camera sales represent higher dollar volume for a particular store, but it also represents a lower profit ratio.
In terms of percentage the profit ratio on a memory card or a lens filter is greater.
Canon announced the price increase – not the retail vendor, and to have the vendor absorb the difference is absurd.
If it were a matter of just a few dollars I don’t think retailers would have a problem.
I already have a Nikon camera, lenses, and accessories ($2200+). Looking to up grade to a better camera with all the bells and whistles. I thought about the D700, they’re doing $300 rebates and maybe more price cuts during the holidays and after canon ships the 5D2? Eventhough Canon’s 5D2 has video and 21mp, but with all the waiting time and possibility of price increase. I might as well just get the D700, and not have to switch all my gear to canon. Seriously, What is Canon doing? You’re right Sebastian, with Christmas coming up, whatever sale strategies Canon is working out from the inside, they’re going to have a lot of unhappy customers. Like I said I’m starting to have second thought about waiting for the 5D2 if I can get a good deal with the D700 in a few months.