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Updated: Ok, So Maybe Adorama Doesn’t Suck After All

Update: I just received a phone call from Helen Oster of Adorama who had read this blog post. According to Helen, this email that I received this a.m. was sort of an error. Helen informed me that Adorama *is* actually shipping Canon 5D Mark IIs and that mine will be on a truck out for delivery today. Helen said that the message that I received was an automated message that was sent when the system didn’t see the camera in inventory but that Adorama is in fact shipping them as they receive them same day.

I updated the blog title of this post from Adorama sucks to “Ok, So Maybe Adorama Doesn’t Suck After All” as I’m certainly willing to accept this explanation and give them the benefit of the doubt that they actually did/do have 5D, Mark IIs in stock.

I’m also bumping the comment that Helen just made on this blog post to the post itself.

From Helen:

“I apologize that you received the email that suggested that this item is out of stock. It has in fact been invoiced and packed and is on it’s way to you.

The problem is that until an item actually appears on our shelves, the automated system doesn’t always register that we have it in stock – particularly with a high demand item like this.

If I can ever help with any order from Adorama in the future, you are always welcome to contact me directly.”

Thank you Helen and Adorama for helping me with this camera and sorry for saying that you guys sucked.

I just got the following email from Adorama this morning:

“Thank you for placing an order with Adorama.

We regret to inform you that the following item(s) is currently on
backorder

from the manufacturer, and we are unable to ship immediately.

Item Number: ICA5DM2 – CANON EOS-5D MARK II DIGITAL SLR CAMERA

Our experience has shown that most backorders are shipped out within
10-14 days.
We will update you immediately should there be a change.
Please note, your credit card will not get charged until we ship.

Please accept our apology for this.

We hope to continue to serve you with all your photography needs.

Thank you.

Adorama Customer Service
service@adorama.com
The Photography People
42 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
Tel# (212) 741-0401
(800) 815-0702
Fax# (212) 463-7223
http://www.adorama.com “

What sucks about this is that I canceled my preorder with Wolf Camera on Saturday after assuming that Adorama actually had the camera in stock. I wish that Adorama had disclosed on the product page that this camera is actually on back order. I also wish that at some point in the order process this information had been conveyed to me. Had I been told that Adorama would not be able to ship me this camera I never would have ordered it from them and I never would have canceled my pre-order with Wolf.

If you go to Adorama’s product page on this camera right now, nowhere does it indicate that this camera is on back-order. B&H; photo, by contrast, clearly shows the 5D as being back-ordered on their website.

I think this is a misleading sales practice by Adorama and unfortunately it looks like it will still be several weeks before I actually get my hands on a 5D Mark II.

In the meantime my crappy Canon 5D is completely dead. The only way to get power to the camera is to remove the battery and reinsert it about 40 times in a row which might give you 5 or 6 photos before requiring the same process all over again.

I’m very disappointed in the fact that Canon claimed that they would be shipping these cameras at the end of November and even when I pre-ordered one that I’ve still yet been able to obtain one.

15 Replies to “Updated: Ok, So Maybe Adorama Doesn’t Suck After All”

  2. Funny, you have a link to BH Photo on your site, yet that is the one place you haven’t ordered from…. And according to their site they have the 5D in stock! 😀

  4. Boz, I'm not sure which B&H; website or camera that you are looking at but when I pull up B&H;'s website the 5D Mark II is clearly labeled as "Back-Ordered." I'm looking at the screen right now. I've long admired B&H; as a camera retailer and buy from them when I can. Labeling a back-ordered camera as back-ordered is the ethical thing to do.

  7. Posted this on FF but will also post here for those that aren’t following on FF…

    A lot of sites don’t have real-time inventory, they guess based on a daily (morning) start inventory and key times through the day. IE: 2 in stock at 9am (start inventory) – yesterday we sold 2 by noon – the site shows in stock until noon, then switches to out of stock (back order). Even some big, well known sites use this method. How accurate they are depends on the interval and history analysis. Some are pretty sophisticated. I usually call to confirm if it’s important I get something.

  8. I surprised you can’t get one easily in the US of A. In the UK there all over the place. Warehouse Express have some in stock.

  9. Ted, the Amazon price for $3,499.99, is highway robbery. This camera was supposed to ship at the end of November, per Canon rep Chuck Westfall, and is supposed to retail for $2,800.

  10. I apologize that you received the email that suggested that this item is out of stock. It has in fact been invoiced and packed and is on it’s way to you.

    The problem is that until an item actually appears on our shelves, the automated system doesn’t always register that we have it in stock – particularly with a high demand item like this.

    If I can ever help with any order from Adorama in the future, you are always welcome to contact me directly.

    Sincerely
    Helen Oster
    Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador

    helen.oster@adoramacamera.com

  11. I’ve purchased dozens of things from Adorama and typically don’t have any issues. When issues have come up, they’ve always been willing and able to help. I don’t think they were trying to avoid any bad publicity, I think they would have worked with anyone who called them with an issue.

    Good customer service is specifically why I order from Adorama. It’s a very rare thing these days.

  12. Not to pee in your Cheerios Thomas, but the new battery in the 5DMK2 is just one of several reasons I have decided not to upgrade and am going to stick with the 5D (unlike yours, mine is still going strong). I’ve kept the double charger that came with the D60 through successive upgrades and find it very useful. The last thing I need is for it to become yet another item in my collection of technology paperweights, but that’s a relatively small niggle.

    I’ve been shooting with the Mark II for a couple of weeks now (I have a loaner) and the other main reason I won’t be upgrading is the vertical banding issue when using sRAW1. It’s a major drag. When I first read Canon’s press release on 5D issues, I thought “no big deal, – I’ll just shoot RAW”, but I’ve found that in most daily shooting situations I don’t need (or want) a giant 21 MP file. The solution should be to set the file type to sRAW1 – but the banding is so crappy that you can’t. This, and the fact that I really don’t see any significant improvement in noise performance at higher ISO are the reasons I’m going to probably skip a generation. Or switch to Nikon. Kidding. Kinda.

    Also, while I’m ranting — just from a “feel” perspective, the camera seems sluggish in general performance (mostly AF) compared to the 5D – AND – they moved the delete button directly below the playback button. Brilliant! Have fun getting used to that. Ok – I’ll stop bummin’ everyone out. On the bright side, the sensor cleaning is nice 🙂

    These have been my impressions, but you need a new camera anyway, so hopefully you’ll have a better experience. Maybe Canon will be able to address the banding issue through a firmware update. I’ll be interested to hear your opinions on the Mark II, since you’ve been shooting with the 5D for such a long time.

  13. I am pleased to clarify: this customer placed his order on a Saturday – it is known fairly widely that Adorama is closed on Saturdays.

    We usually use UPS to ship orders -UPS do not ship on Sundays.

    We knew that a shipment of these highly sought after cameras would be arriving early Monday morning, giving ample time for the dispatch centre team to package all the orders that we had received in time to ship on Monday afternoon / evening.

    The automated notification that went out on Sunday night did so because there were none of these items on the shelves at the time, therefore they didn’t provide part of our inventory.

    This customer’s order was packaged, invoiced and in the dispatch bay before he posted his blog.

    We do make mistakes at Adorama – this was not one of them.

    It is regrettable that the headline chosen for the original blog has been picked up by numerous spam bots and spiders, generating huge amounts of additional work for me in terms of service recovery that I would otherwise be utilizing to assist Adorama customers.

    Sincerely

    Helen Oster
    Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador

    helen.oster@adoramacamera.com
    http://www.adoramacamera.com

  15. I just used Adorama for the first time a few weeks ago and will never buy from them again. I ordered via internet as I am in Spain and the system duplicated my order. This happened on a Saturday. I emailed them right away and called the first thing in the morning ( their time ) the following Monday. They told me both orders were shipped and would try to intercept one of them. They did but charged me full shipping for an item that never left the state of NY. Well, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…

    I find this dishonest. As they were closed and could I cloud not communicate with them regarding the mistake but apparently the shipping department was working over the weekend. In any case it was their system error and there was no way to correct it online, by phone, or email. As I said I will never order from them again or recommend them to anyone.

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