5DmkII price drop in Japan....due to a box fail?

[willrobb]

Recently 5DmkII prices have really dropped in Japan. The last month alone has seen a 25'000 yen (about 320 dollar) drop in price across the board, the cheapest deals being 159'000 yen ($2065) for "outlet" 5DmkII bodies. I asked about these "outlet" bodies and was told that due to a mess up on box sizes for the 5DmkII + 24-105mm f4L lens kit, the lens wouldn't go in the box, so they have to sell both items separately at a knock down price. Basically canon has taken $350 dollars off the body and about $250 off the lens, a loss of $600 due to a box mess up? Seems like bad business if that's true, but after living in Japan for 10 years I'm kind of used to not believing anything I'm told, the truth here is concealed with smoke and sliding mirrors but that's not for this forum.

Maybe this price drop seems not so cheap with the current yen-dollar conversion, but not so long ago 159'000 yen for a body was $1600, in Japan that's under 3/5th of the original release price.

Is this happening elsewhere? Is canon getting rid of a bad batch of boxes or are they trying to get rid of stock to make way for something new? Any ideas?

Regardless, I'm not complaining about the drop and got my second 5DmkII.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The boxes cost about $2 to make. Canon could easily afford to scrap and bad boxes and print new ones. This sounds very fishy to me.

That said, Canon does seem to be dropping the price of the 5D MK II a bit, I'm kinda expecting a replacement to be announced in Februaary for perhaps May delivery.

 

[PeterJ]

Yeah sounds sus to me, apart from what Mt Spokane said about the low cost of replacement boxes the modern packaging industry is so automated I'm sure they could "call in a favour" from their supplier and get them in a week.

I wonder if it's just they're getting a good deal on the kit and splitting it up giving that as an explanation for not having 'proper' packaging? A few non-offical dealers in Australia do that, although they're up-front about why you don't get the lens box. I'd also assume that while Canon are based in Japan a good deal of components, sub-assemblies and some manufacturing occurs in other countries where the change in exchange rate has helped drop the cost.

Probably some truth in that it could be to do with a Mk III as well, whether it's out in 3 months or 18 now the R&D costs are out of the way it probably makes sense to drop the price and get more out there. From a customer loyalty point of view if you buy one today at $2K and the replacement is $3K or more I can't see you'd end up dropping too much money when you came to sell it.

 

[willrobb]

The boxes cost about $2 to make. Canon could easily afford to scrap and bad boxes and print new ones. This sounds very fishy to me.

Fishy indeed. A friend went to a store, he was told the same "box doesn't fit" story, got the outlet body in a lens kit box he was told the lens box wouldn't fit into, bought the outlet 24-105mm lens, another store clerk dealt with the payment and then slipped the lens box in with the body that it wasn't supposed to fit in. Hmmmm.

 

[wockawocka]

The price drops are simple business manouvers.

The camera is getting older yet Canon wants to sell them at the same rate so lowers the price. There's a big profit margin on these (I expect) and another Canon owner is one less Sony, Nikon, Olympus owner etc.

Just plain old supply and demand.