As you know yesterday Olympus posted some impressive deals on refurbished E-M5 cameras on their getolympus website. Short time after I posted this on 43rumors theyput their website offline. Now it’s back and prices have been raised. Wondering what happened to those of you that preordered the camera for the crazy low price. Got some feedback from Oly?
Some other US deals:
Panasonic 12-35mm X lens for 1,039 dollars via Panacam on Amazon (Click here).
GF5 with lens for $339 at Newegg (Click here).
Most sold MFT camera is again the E-PL1 (Ranking here).
30 Responses
Nice business practices. Ugh!
? It’s normal business practice to take your site down when their’s a economy/accounting issue. In this case the wrong price went up.
Are you such a jerk that you want a company to suffer because of one person’s MISTAKE, or heck a software glitch?
What’s wrong with you… Mistakes happen, i’m sure you have made some (i know i did!!!!!).
It’s persons who suffer, not companies. And a company the size of Olympus won’t feel a thing only because they sold a couple of refurbished cameras for a little less than they could.
Pacta sunt servanda, and it is not clear that there ever was a mistake at all. Maybe the 43 Rumors notice just made them rethink their prices.
Then again, it’s perfectly in order for a company to rethink their prices. But they definitely should ship the items already ordered for the price they originally asked.
That’s not how business works… at all.
What are you talking about? If I buy an item for a given price, I expect to receive it, not to have my business cancelled because there was a mistake made by the seller. AFAIK in the US there are precedents where the seller was sentenced to finalize the selling process despite their withdrawal of the original offer.
If a buyer has already agreed to send money he has the right to receive the item at the price originally proposed.
Otherwise “computer problems”, “mistakes of a single person” etc., would become a very good excuse to ask for more money after a contract is signed…
Exactly. They offer, you accept -> deal. Unless the customer can be expected to understand that a mistake has been made.
So I’m wondering if some customers got lucky, or if a shameful employee at Olympus is trying to do everything to keep his/her job. Sleepless nights. Any bargain om-d deal would be evidence of an unacceptable failure…
If a company goes out of business then people (their employees) suffer. And if someone who works for a company screws up and causes the company to take a large loss then even if the company is fine that person generally suffers as a result (being fired for instance).
Compare that to the “suffering” (none at all) of someone who knows the price they are paying is a pricing error and then has the order canceled on that basis.
Also IIRC SCOTUS has already ruled on this and yes retailers can unilaterally cancel a sale if there is a significant pricing error. But you can sue them if they are abusing this right in some way.
The price mark downs were not severe enough to have anyone think that they were pricing errors on first glance. It’s not as if prices were missing zeroes. They were not even 50% off. Moreover, the end of year is a common period to have big sales. Between thanksgiving, christmas and stock closeouts.
Add to that that they do not write any specific policies on their site’s ‘term of use’ page regarding pricing errors, i think Olympus will need to deliver.
Remember that getolympus.com store is operated directly by Olympus themselves. We’re not talking about retailers or even distributors’ website where they purchase their inventory at dealer prices from Olympus.
Olympus makes money even if they sell goods at dealers price… which is probably 25-40% below retail.
Yeah, and cost of sales doesn’t exist, right
Retailers buy their goods from Olympus at dealers prices, THEN adds their marketing, sales costs, etc on top of that.
Olympus? They already make money when they sell products at dealers costs to their retailers network.
It is far far FAR cheaper and easier for a company to sell en masse to dealers than it is to sell individual items.
You seem to think that when they sell an item for $750 to dealers and $750 to an end customer, they make the same amount of profit. That simply is not the case.
That’s not the context of this discussion.
Using your example, you seem to think that Olympus will lose more money selling the item at $700 to the end user compared to a retailer (say, B&H) selling it at $700 to an end user.
Even though it’s already clear that B&H’s cost of purchase is $750 to Olympus.
What on earth are you talking about? The cost for Olympus to sell to an end user is higher than to sell to a dealer. Olympus makes more money from selling $750 camera to a dealer, and then the dealer selling it for $1000 to an end user, than if they sell it to an end user for $750.
Otherwise all camera companies would just open up super cheap online stores and that’d be the end of that.
I’ll spell it out for you. Hope you understand this time.
In this thread, we’re talking about possible pricing error and the effect of it to the seller.
If, for example, the dealer’s price for a certain item is at $750 (and the MSRP at $1000) and for whatever reason there is a pricing error that result in some of those items sold at $750, then:
a). If this happens to a retailer, then they’re sure to lose because the product was sold at/below their purchase price.
b). If this happens to the manufacturer’s direct selling channel (as in getolympus.com) then it’s not likely that Olympus takes a loss on that transaction, since they sell the products at $750 to their dealers anyway.
Have a good day
I didn’t say anybody should take their site down. Don’t put words in my mouth.’
“when their’s a economy/accounting issue”
Try proper English.
Yes, I have accidentally advertised items for less than I intended – and yes, I did honor the advertised price.
In many jurisdictions there are consumer protection laws that protect the consumer from advertsing a low price but being charged more. For example, a store that advertises a particular item at a particular price has to sell it at that price. They cannot refuse to sell it for that price.
Why do you think that a business should be excused for advertising falsely? They should take the ad down, but until that has happened they should honor the advertised price.
Uhhh, to be blunt, no. If a pricing error is fixed, a store is not obliged to sell anything at any price in any jurisdiction I have ever heard of. If you see an item at a particular cost in as store, pick it up and walk to the counter and say “I’ll have that” and the sales clerk scans it and says “Sorry, the price is wrong, its actually twice that” then that is just that. The price is twice that and you’re not getting your item.
Down here in Australia in certain stores, you find any pricing mistakes and they actually give it to you for free and give you an apology too. Happend to me on several occasions. Grocery store, not camera store but still. great policy IMO. In Sweden, if they haven’t changed anything lately, they have to abide the price they advertise, mistake or not.
I come from Europe, and the laws here are rather uniform, whether its Sweden or Portugal – if you find a camera in a store with a wrongly marked price, the best you’ll get is a middle finger!! Nobody is going to sell you a camera for a small price just because some employee put a wrong sticker on it.
And if you go to court over it you may just win unless the price is an obvious mistake that a potential buyer could be expected to know being a mistake.
Advertising with prices and then not having the deal at all (or in very limited amounts without explicitly mentioning it) is actually a violation of EU consumer protection laws as well as anti-trust laws. Obvious mistakes aside, a shop can indeed be forced to honor advertised prices.
I’m German, and there I have purchased things at the advertised price.
That would be the “erroneously” too-low price.
And the 17/1.8 is back to 499 from 369, the 75/1.8 from 669…
Sounds like the we site was hacked
So more than what it’s really worth, for a used body with something like a 30 warranty on an electrical device, for a thousand bucks? I think some people defending Olympus are either paid employees, or just plain stupid. Come on, get brain or learn to use the one you have.
Brand new Olympus E-M5 with 12-50mm can be had for $1,099.99 in my part of the far frozen North (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
http://www.londondrugs.com/Olympus%20E-M5%20Camera%20with%2012-50mm%20f/3.5-6.3%20Lens%20-%20Body%20Black%20-%20Lens%20Black/L5763651,default,pd.html?start=9&q=olympus
I saw that today at LondonDrugs. It’s more appealing than buying a reconditioned/refurbished one online just to save $60 on a $1000+ item. But at $1100 with the 12-50mm, I’m still on the fence. OTOH, if the body only is also $200 off, I would’ve bought it right at spot. Anyway, I’m from Vancouver too and it isn’t “frozen”, lol.
It isn’t fair from another point of view. Prices for used, reconditioned cameras are much to high. A reconditioned E-PM1 ist 319,- $ on Olympus outlet. In Europe the price for a new E-PM1 14-42 is only 268,- €.
It starts… 400 USD next autumn? I may even get one for giggles.
I am afraid the mistake will hurt Olympus sales in short term. People have tasted the blood and will expect those unrealistic prices now.
Generally, if you want a big discount for a camera which is several months old, you are better off looking at Panasonic, Samsung or even Canon (5D3 is like $1000 off already).