Amazon - Bezo's lame response...

[jmp2000]

Below is a response I got from a e-mail I sent to Jeff Bezo's. Got this after I ordered somewhere else and canceled my Amazon order


Dear Mr. XXXX,

I'm Jennifer Weber of Amazon.com's Executive Customer Relations team. Jeff Bezos received your e-mail and asked me to respond on his behalf.

I'm really sorry you feel that we left you in the dark with the shipping and delivery dates for this camera body, but we simply don't have a firm date on when we expect to receive inventory from our sources. I understand you can purchase this locally and that you've already canceled the order, however, I'll share your experience with the right teams here for consideration in future improvements.

Best wishes, and please feel free to contact me directly by replying to this message if there's anything further I can help with.


Regards,

Jennifer Weber
Executive Customer Relations
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com
==========================

From:XXXXXXXXXXX
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 7:49 AM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Preorder

Dear Mr Bezos,

I just wanted to send you a quick e-mail in regards to your delivery of the Canon 5D Mark III cameras. One March 2nd, I placed a pre-order for a $3,500 camera and as of this morning I have to get a a response from Amazon on the delivery. All 4 attempts to Amazon have resulted in we do not know anything because Canon has not advised us on when Amazon will be getting any inventory. I understand that they are giving me the company line but to leave you customers in the dark makes no sense.

These cameras are already in retail stores around the USA and the giant Amazon has no clue? Give me a break, I can but it direct from Canon and have it shipped on Monday but you can give me any details?

Honestly once this order ships I will not be ordering anything from Amazon again based on this poor experience. I spend a great deal of money on camera equipment every year and I thought I would give you guys a shot but I realized how much customer service means and you failed the test.


Best regards,

XXXXXX

 

[unruled]

seems pretty normal to me..

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Amazon has never been able to get new pro models first. I predicted this several weeks ago on a thread on this site. I ordered a 7D from them on day 1 and they canceled my order 2 weeks later due to a error in their listing. I re-ordered from Adorama and still received it from the first shipment.

Camera dealers are the best place to order new models. Best Buy, Amazon, etc are fine, but, if you want to be first, establish a relationship with a local dealer and they will take care of you. You are just one in 10,000 to a big seller, and one in several million to Amazon.

I do have a Amazon Prime account and buy things that they are good at, like books, just not photography stuff. They struggle at it, and seem to be phasing out lenses, nearly all lenses on Amazon now come from third parties.

Of the big camera stores, I've had the best luck at getting a body quickly with Adorama. I did not get my preorder in early, but later in the day on March 2, and I'm 3 hours later on the West coast. Adorama shipped my camera the 2nd day of shipments (thursday), and I wished they had delayed one more day so that my card charge due would have slid a month. However, I have funds set aside to pay for it, so its not a concern that way.

Other dealers like B&H, and Norman Camera have been good to me as well.

 

[steven63]

Amazon is a good company, providing a good service. They sell and facilitate the selling of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of individual items. The 5dmiii is just one of another item that they offer, BUT, they cannot sell what they don't have. No matter how much you or anybody else want them to.

You are expectant of a 5dmiii as fast as humanly possible - this is an expectation that is reminiscent of setting up a tent in front of a Best Buy store 5 days before they begin selling 'whatever' is the hot item at the moment. I see those people and tell myself "they must not have a life."

In a nut shell, Amazon doesn't have it, so don't buy it from them. But, the world isn't going to end if you don't get a new camera before next week. I assure you the sun will come up and you will live at least until your new camera comes to your doorstep.

On a side note: I tried the 5dmiii at my local camera shop today. I was blown away by the ISO performance. Simply amazing. And, all their stock was spoken for. I'm fine with it.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

The problem is that Canon started trying to protect real camera dealers so they give the little stores stock first, they want to maintain a strong dealer network and not have everyone go out of business, they want local shops, then they give stock to the big camera stores, then finally places like Amazon. So I don't know what you expected Amazon to say.

 

[sleepnever]

HAHAHAAH ....oh man, people like you people crack me up. I logged in just so I could publicly laugh out loud.

I get that you're frustrated, but c'mon, Amazon is a big company and does a pretty good job of Customer Service if I do say so myself. I'm sure if they had stock, they'd send it to you. Remember that YOU pre-ordered against stock they didn't have originally. As you stated, you could have bought it from Canon and had it already (what is stopping you?). And over this one thing, you're going to stop buying from Amazon in the future? I don't believe it. Its like whiny kids that say if XYZ doesn't happen with a video game I'm never purchasing from EA or whoever again. Get real dude.

 

[capertillar]

yeah, i dont get all the anger towards amazon... realistically, people buy online to save on tax. if you dont care for the 300 bux you'd probably shell out for tax, then just buy it locally. if you want to save, expect to have to wait a tad bit longer to get your stuff.

thats always been the advantage to getting things in store, you can pick it up as soon as you hop in the car and drive over (provided the store is open with stock)

;D

 

[dstppy]

Disclaimer: I'm an Amazon zealot (like some Apple Fanbois).

One thing I can tell you is that they have front-line access to many vendors, but you really need to figure out which products they don't have premium pricing/availability to (Lego comes to mind immediately) . . . and just accept it.

That said, I think Steve Jobs was the only major tech lord to answer an e-mail himself. I actually would do nothing short of sending a snail-mail letter to them if you're so inclined.

Seriously, if I could buy gas/fuel oil and Gin from Amazon, I'd be at 99% purchase from them, but you have to profile a vendor before you call them out over something like stocking.

-EWPIV

 

[acoll123]

What a whiner . . . sending an email like that to the leader of a billion dollar company and you don't even bother to proof-read it. Your probably lucky they responded at all.

 

[RedEye]

As one who ordered probably 500 orders a year from amazon for personal and business, they ROCK! If there was a problem with this situation its likely the supplier and not the retailer as amazon has never let me down in the past decade.

 

[Vaz]

My plans were screwed by Amazon this time as well. Today I picked up a camera at a local shop and ate the tax. It was painful but with my goal acheived, I can focus on more important things...school, cleaning, damage control on the wife

This isn't going to make me stop using Amazon, but has taught me a very important lesson. When you order from them, you may be getting a good price, but you are not just relying on Amazon. You are relying suppliers behind the scenes, Amazon, and of course UPS(who can suddenly decide that your address is undeliverable and return it to amazon).

I think as it was already said, you need to build up a profile of Amazon and what they can reliable get to you. Anything that is of super high priority might be a bad idea to get from them. I know there is some video games coming out later this year I want on day 1 and I'm considering if I should use them or not, but the alternative is Gamestop

 

[bjbenoit]

I am not sure what was your intent when you decided to post this.. but after reading it I have to give Amazon a +100 for responding and to you a -100 for over reacting