(ENDED) Holiday Shopping 2016 Camera Deals Situation Room

The Holiday Shopping Season is over, so the 2016 Holiday shopping situation room has reached the end of its lifecycle. It will no longer be updated…

For the latest deals, check the Camera Deals blog and/or subscribe to its full-text RSS feed

The “Situation Room” is preserved after the jump for historical reference. It will no longer be updated…

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(ENDED) Black Friday 2106 Ads Digest (Camera and Photo edition)

This post “digested” the Black Friday Ads of 2016. Black Friday is over, so it will obviously no longer be updated… For the latest deals in summary format, check the Holiday Shopping 2016 Situation Room, or if you prefer to see them one by one as they happen, check the Camera Deals blog

Original post after the jump is for historical reference only…

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Blog Updates: Trade Show Calendar updated with 2017 shows; Black Friday Ads Digest begins soon

It’s that time of the year again, I updated the Trade Show Calendar with the 2017 events. All the major shows have dates published, except for the “Le Salon de la Photo” whose 2016 trade show is actually happening this very weekend (follow some of the action on the official Le Salon trade show hashtag). All the major trade shows continue from last year, however, some have changed their dates, while others moved to different locations. January has most of the action in 2017.

NEXT UP: Black Friday is less than two weeks away, so our customary annual Black Friday coverage will begin with the Black Friday Ads digest. This should go live either tonight or tomorrow and will continue to get updated as more official and officially-leaked ads come out.

After that, we’ll have our usual “Black Friday Situation Room” as we get closer to the actual Black Friday.

Coming Soon at the Main Blog (for the rest of 2016)

This is a short heads-up post, planned for the remainder of 2016 here at the main blog are the following posts:

  • update the Trade Show Calendar with 2017 dates [TASK COMPLETED!]
  • our annual Black Friday Published/Leaked Ad digest – even if you don’t plan to shop at brick and mortar, most of these are price-matched online the week of Black Friday [IN PROGRESS!]
  • our annual Black Friday Situation Room
  • If I find any interesting patterns comparing the last three years of Camera Price Charts, I will create a post. But if I don’t find anything interesting enough, I won’t post

Camera Price Charts 2016 Episode IV: Serious Fixed Lens Cameras

In Episode #1 of the November 2016 series, we took a look at the prices of all 35mm Full Frame Digital Cameras… In Episode #2, we took a look at APS-C DSLRs… In Episode III, we take a look at prices of Mirrorless Cameras… In this post (episode IV), we take a look at some of the serious fixed lens cameras aka RAWsumers…

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Camera Price Charts 2016 Episode III: The Mirrorless Expansion

In Episode #1 of the November 2016 series, we took a look at the prices of all 35mm Full Frame Digital Cameras… In Episode #2, we took a look at APS-C DSLRs… In this post (Episode III), we take a look at prices of mirrorless cameras. As usual, we do not include rangefinders in this category, and we do not include sensors larger than 35mm since those are very niche (but we saw action there too with the Fuji medium format GFX 50S).

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Rantnoyance #1: Marketplaces Won’t Tell You Who The Actual Seller Is

This is a new series of posts that point out issues and problems with camera- related shopping, practices and things that are not very consumer-friendly, or not as consumer-friendly as they could be. This is not only for the benefit of consumers, but also for retailers who are in it for the long haul. The happier your consumers, the more sales, and more loyal customers you get, and the more they spread the word longer and wider.

We start with a relatively new trend with open marketplaces which allow many 3rd-party merchants to sell the same product: the marketplace won’t tell you upfront or will make it hard to figure (without either proceeding all the way in the ordering process, or even after completing an order) who the actual seller of the product is.

The poster-child of this phenomenon is Jet.com. Not only did they have lots of funding when they were independent, but also got a giant infusion of cash when they got purchased by Walmart [see Crunchbase for details], so it’s not like they don’t have the money or infrastructure to do this. I understand the need to simplify the product page and not have it be a circus like a typical Amazon product page. Jet also simplifies the shipping process, where you just buy things, and you don’t have to worry about paying multiple shipping fees depending on the seller. This is good and innovative, and a way to help the consumer save money. Certainly not an issue if you are buying small things and books and music CDs and such.

However what is a plus for small purchases, becomes a big negative for things like camera gear. The actual seller of a product is very important when you are buying an expensive item or an item where authorized dealer status dictates whether you get warranty service or not. And that’s before we consider counterfeit products. Or unreliable and disreputable dealers who try to sneak in opened and used products as brand new or remove accessories. And the list goes on of potential issues when you are not dealing with an A-list dealer.

Considering all the shenanigans we know (and not love) about camera gear selling, and some sellers being less reputable and reliable than others, this is a big wild card and risk for the buyer.

Jet is not alone

Jet is not the only one. NewEgg’s FLASH sales website (NewEggFlash) is not as bad as Jet, but when you go to a product page, the actual seller of a product is hidden. You have to decode the “Return Policy” to guess who the actual seller is. Thankfully this becomes more obvious _AFTER_ you add an item to the shopping cart, but that’s still not good enough.

Here are a couple of screenshots, used under fair use as an example of the consumer issue at hand. The first is when NewEggFlash itself is the seller, the second is when a marketplace seller is the actual seller:

neweggflash_returnpolicy_1

neweggflash_returnpolicy_2

So the above is a trick to figure this out, not an official way. And that’s assuming that the seller is the one offering the “Return Policy”. But once you add the item to the shopping cart, the seller becomes formally visible:

neweggflash_returnpolicy_3

Unintentionally Buying from Marketplace sellers is Still a General Issue

There are still people who unintentionally buy from marketplace sellers (instead of the house), even when the seller is shown in the listings. Partly this is user error, but it’s also up to the marketplaces to make it more obvious and easier to detect for the average consumer. Even with Amazon, who has been around since the early days of the consumer internet, and clearly marks the seller of record in their listings, there are still people who accidentally buy something from a marketplace seller and only realize this when they have to return something or when they have a problem.

So all retailers need to work to improve on this. And we, as consumers, need to pay more attention, while the winds of multi-tasking are pulling us in a dozen different directions 🙂

Camera Price Charts 2016 Episode I: The Full Frame Price Fix

And we are back with the 2016 edition of our snapshot of camera prices in the US market. We start with the 35mm full frame digital cameras, grouping together all kinds, DSLRs, mirrorless, walletfinders (okay, rangefinders), and fixed lens. Because Medium Format is a very small niche, we are not tracking their prices here… In Episode #2 we look at APS-C DSLR prices

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