Nikon 180-600mm lens ship date

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SCoombs said:
Or simply that BH is shipping very slowly.

I'm not sure what to make of the talk of Nikon not shipping based on the time of order. I'm just not sure how a system would work thar does that. It's not just that it would seem unfair to do thus - but it's that I'd think you'd have to go out of your way not to ship in the order that purchases were made; simplest/cheapest/most default way for a system to work would be to just have a list of buyers as they come in and fill them in that order. Why would they put in the effort required to mix the orders up?
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In recent months I have spoken to B&H customer service personnel several times about my 180-600 lens order and another order I placed for a Nikon product. In each case they assured me that orders are fulfilled in chronological order. I have no reason to doubt that. B&H can fulfill its back orders only when they have an allotment from the manufacturer.
 
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JAJohnson said:
In recent months I have spoken to B&H customer service personnel several times about my 180-600 lens order and another order I placed for a Nikon product. In each case they assured me that orders are fulfilled in chronological order. I have no reason to doubt that. B&H can fulfill its back orders only when they have an allotment from the manufacturer.
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This is true, but I spoke to Allens Camera in PA. They said 'we have received 7 total, and all was directed to the NPS customers'. So the layman that place an order early are over looked to the NPS people.
 
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I hope the orders shipping to Nikon store customers means a big shipment of the 180-600 is coming in soon including for customers at Nikon dealers. I don’t know how Nikon allocates product between Nikon store orders and orders at dealers.
 
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Charles Loy said:
This is true, but I spoke to Allens Camera in PA. They said 'we have received 7 total, and all was directed to the NPS customers'. So the layman that place an order early are over looked to the NPS people.
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Clearly, demand far exceeded supply. And the reasons for allocations made to Nikon’s various retail channels are known only Nikon fulfillment teams. I hope all preorders can be completed soon. It’s quite frustrating.
 
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Micky said:
I placed my order with the Nikon store on October 2. I received this email this morning:

We are getting ready to ship your order!​

​
The backordered item from your order is back in stock and ready to ship. We will send another email in the next few business days with your shipping information. Thanks for your patience!​
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Does your order still say Processing on the nikon order details?
 
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I placed my order with Nikon early on the first day of orders (back on June 21, right?). I got an email this morning telling me my order is canceled. Oh, dear. I realized there must have been a glitch with the payment method (I used Apple Pay). What actually happened was that about two months ago my bank card was compromised and had to be replaced by the bank with a new account number. This changed the Apple Pay link, but Apple Pay was immediately reinstated and actually should not have been affected. Even so, when I finally got through to the Nikon USA agent (nice woman; all this is not her fault) she said that indeed, the Apple Pay failed and it doesn't matter that I had/have a new bank card number from the same linked Visa account, etc. My order was/is kaput, and cannot be "reinstated." So I placed another order for the same item and she was able to "prioritize" it, fwiw.

My consolation is that a while back I did buy the Sony 200-600 zoom, which I use with the Magadap adapter. It works great, but really, not quite as seamlessly as the Nikon lens, and when I use the 1.4x TC I have to move the adapter back and forth. First World Problem, but having the Sony makes not getting the Nikon much easier to stomach.

But wait, there's more!

Long, long ago I placed an order for the vaunted 600mm f4TC lens. Now, this item really above my pay grade in terms of price, but I rationalized by saying this is "my last big, expensive Nikon lens." Well, that order had been placed with the same bank card, which not only was compromised and hence was canceled and replaced, but would have expired at the end of this month in any case. I asked the nice woman agent if she could change the payment method for that order. She said nope. It is canceled, period, end of story. If I placed a new order she could "prioritize it" for me, but with an item like this is does not make all that much difference. So I decided that God, in His infinite wisdom, is telling me I cannot really afford that lens anyway and so I just decided to let it go. My wife will be happy, at least.

However, seriously speaking, Nikon has some real problems with its ordering system, especially as it pertains to these lengthy preorders and backorders. Once you provide a payment method for an order you CANNOT change it for that order; you have to place a new order. I pointed out that with Nikon's recent tendency to develop very popular lenses that result in lengthy preorder/backorders, it must be fairly common for people's bank cards to expire in the interim and there has to be a way to update them for outstanding orders. Nope.

So the lesson in all of this is that people should not, not, not place these kinds of orders through Nikon USA. Lesson learned and shared.
 
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GrandNagus50 said:
I placed my order with Nikon early on the first day of orders (back on June 21, right?). I got an email this morning telling me my order is canceled. Oh, dear. I realized there must have been a glitch with the payment method (I used Apple Pay). What actually happened was that about two months ago my bank card was compromised and had to be replaced by the bank with a new account number. This changed the Apple Pay link, but Apple Pay was immediately reinstated and actually should not have been affected. Even so, when I finally got through to the Nikon USA agent (nice woman; all this is not her fault) she said that indeed, the Apple Pay failed and it doesn't matter that I had/have a new bank card number from the same linked Visa account, etc. My order was/is kaput, and cannot be "reinstated." So I placed another order for the same item and she was able to "prioritize" it, fwiw.

My consolation is that a while back I did buy the Sony 200-600 zoom, which I use with the Magadap adapter. It works great, but really, not quite as seamlessly as the Nikon lens, and when I use the 1.4x TC I have to move the adapter back and forth. First World Problem, but having the Sony makes not getting the Nikon much easier to stomach.

But wait, there's more!

Long, long ago I placed an order for the vaunted 600mm f4TC lens. Now, this item really above my pay grade in terms of price, but I rationalized by saying this is "my last big, expensive Nikon lens." Well, that order had been placed with the same bank card, which not only was compromised and hence was canceled and replaced, but would have expired at the end of this month in any case. I asked the nice woman agent if she could change the payment method for that order. She said nope. It is canceled, period, end of story. If I placed a new order she could "prioritize it" for me, but with an item like this is does not make all that much difference. So I decided that God, in His infinite wisdom, is telling me I cannot really afford that lens anyway and so I just decided to let it go. My wife will be happy, at least.

However, seriously speaking, Nikon has some real problems with its ordering system, especially as it pertains to these lengthy preorders and backorders. Once you provide a payment method for an order you CANNOT change it for that order; you have to place a new order. I pointed out that with Nikon's recent tendency to develop very popular lenses that result in lengthy preorder/backorders, it must be fairly common for people's bank cards to expire in the interim and there has to be a way to update them for outstanding orders. Nope.

So the lesson in all of this is that people should not, not, not place these kinds of orders through Nikon USA. Lesson learned and shared.
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My issue is with the Apple Card. My wife had her Z8 order cancelled twice even though we tried to get the charge pre-approved (we were assured that it was) but when Nikon ran the charge it failed. As you stated the order is cancelled without any opportunity to get the charge approved.:mad::unsure:
 
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gnpToday said:
My issue is with the Apple Card. My wife had her Z8 order cancelled twice even though we tried to get the charge pre-approved (we were assured that it was) but when Nikon ran the charge it failed. As you stated the order is cancelled without any opportunity to get the charge approved.:mad::unsure:
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With situations like this, I suspect Nikon USA doesn't have the staffing required to chase payments. I went to HQ in Melville, NY a few months back to drop off my 600E for repair. I hadn't been there in maybe 10 years. I was shocked when I pulled into the parking lot, which was previously a good 75% full. It was almost empty, I could have easily counted the cars in the lot. Inside HQ was similar, where there had been people everywhere, there was a security guard and that's about it. I've heard they made lots of cuts, including farming out most of the repairs. The people who are left are very nice but it seems there aren't many of them.
NPS orders always get priority, regardless of when they are placed. I do have concerns when I see people getting gear directly from Nikon yet dealers report they have not received anything other than NPS reserves. I was told that this could be that the dealer(s) are not in good financial standing with Nikon or they have been downgraded from professional dealers to average. I checked my dealer and as of yesterday, they are still top tier. Can't comment about their finances as I don't know (none of my business) but there aren't any of the usual signs of issues. Something does seem different about the way this lens is being distributed though......
 
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GrandNagus50 said:
I placed my order with Nikon early on the first day of orders (back on June 21, right?). I got an email this morning telling me my order is canceled. Oh, dear. I realized there must have been a glitch with the payment method (I used Apple Pay).
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imo this is one of the most valid things to complain about with nikon. they really should fix this. pretty much any camera store is going to contact you and give you a chance to iron it out.
 
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John Navitsky said:
imo this is one of the most valid things to complain about with nikon. they really should fix this. pretty much any camera store is going to contact you and give you a chance to iron it out.
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I now only order from Nikon USA when the item I need is in-stock there and unavailable from other retailers I trust. It’s so much better to develop a relationship with a dealer.
 
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JAJohnson said:
I now only order from Nikon USA when the item I need is in-stock there and unavailable from other retailers I trust. It’s so much better to develop a relationship with a dealer.
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yah, i always order from my local brick and mortar. mostly just to support them so we can continue to HAVE local brick and mortar stores, but this is a reason i would be hesitant to order fro nikon usa.
 
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Micky said:
I placed my order with the Nikon store on October 2. I received this email this morning:

We are getting ready to ship your order!​

​
The backordered item from your order is back in stock and ready to ship. We will send another email in the next few business days with your shipping information. Thanks for your patience!​
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Lucky! Can you please confirm whether you are NPS? I called Nikon this morning and she said NPS orders no matter when placed take priority. All others are processed in order received.
 
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Micky said:
I placed my order with the Nikon store on October 2. I received this email this morning:

We are getting ready to ship your order!​

​
The backordered item from your order is back in stock and ready to ship. We will send another email in the next few business days with your shipping information. Thanks for your patience!​
Click to expand...
I ordered mine and June 21st when they were announced and just got the same email this morning :)
 
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John Navitsky said:
imo this is one of the most valid things to complain about with nikon. they really should fix this. pretty much any camera store is going to contact you and give you a chance to iron it out.
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It may be more a matter of their size than being a Nikon specific problem. I've encountered similar issues with other large companies and found using a smaller independent retailer to get around it.

Once we tried to order a stove. The stove was not in stock and wouldn't ship for several weeks or months - it was unclear how long it would be. We placed the order with Lowe's, where it was on a sale. They did a charge on the debit card. Then a week or two later we got a message from the store that the card had been declined. We'd have had to re-order and thar would cause problems with the price as the sale was over.

Looking into it and calling the store and the bank we learned that the initial charge is sort of an authorization which just checks the availability of funds but it doesn't count until they finalize the charge and the money is actually paid to the merchant. This is how it works with all such transaction, not just this retailer. The problem was that either by law or a very common bank policy, I forget which (but I think it was the law) any charge that isn't finalized within a certain period of time - a week or two - must be automatically canceled. The store's system would try to automatically run the authorization again when it expired. Yet because it takes a certain time period for a canceled authorization to come off the card, when the store's system did this there wasn't enough available so it would be declined.

We talked to the people at Lowe's and they said there was no way around this. They couldn't just finalize it early, and they couldn't adjust how the system was timing things so that it would work. We wound up finding the stove at a small local retailer who was able to handle things in a more hands on way.

I think often with larger companies they just have too much volume so they have to rely on automation a lot more with less room for people to step in and adjust how something is working to get around a problem.
 
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SCoombs said:
I think often with larger companies they just have too much volume so they have to rely on automation a lot more with less room for people to step in and adjust how something is working to get around a problem.
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yes, it certainly seems like that's the way a lot of large companies do things, but i don't accept it can't be solved, and it does damage their relationship with their customers.

for one, you could solve this problem with automation. the order goes into a waiting status, emails the user asking them to update the payment info and submit it when they are ready.

or, you could have it just send the orders to a queue where humans do it. you can even outsource to customer service provider.
 
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John Navitsky said:
yes, it certainly seems like that's the way a lot of large companies do things, but i don't accept it can't be solved, and it does damage their relationship with their customers.

for one, you could solve this problem with automation. the order goes into a waiting status, emails the user asking them to update the payment info and submit it when they are ready.

or, you could have it just send the orders to a queue where humans do it. you can even outsource to customer service provider.
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Agreed. It shouldn't be difficult at all for them to do this.
 
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If I recall when I order from Olympus on out of stock items you get an email when they are ready to ship with instructions to input payment method at that moment. You get about 2 or three days before they move if no response. It should be easy for Nikon to implement this change.
 
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Charles Loy said:
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Knowing I was going to wait long, I placed an order directly with Nikon, last Thursday 10-12. Yesterday I received an email it was in shipping process. I checked the credit card and it has been charged. (y)
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I am beginning to smell that Nikon is starting to keep more copies to sell (ship) than distribute to dealers or local sellers to avoid losing profit to them. Just get suspicious to hear that now people can order from Nikon and get delivered after a few days while people who pre-ordered from dealers months ago are still waiting!
 
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