SSD not shipping 990's till end of next week! maybe?

mccandless · May 11, 2001

-I remember reading on this site that they would be shipped
on 5/10.

-I guess it was just a wishful statement to get people to
pre-order with the sponsor.

-I wonder if as many people would have pre-ordered if they
knew that they wouldn't be shipped until a week after they
promised to ship them ?

-I bet people don't get their 990's until June.

-I guess there is nothing wrong with a company being hopeful about its shipping dates, but when you take pre-orders on an item and give them a date, a reasonable company would make sure they had the item on that date.

-Wonder if they plan to make it up to the customers that pre-ordered with some sort of compensation. Doubt It!
-Not so sure about StateStreet Direct anymore.
-Where has customer service gone?
-Beware of rotten sales tactics that may mislead customers.

Trent Mulkern · May 11, 2001

I do not mean to flame, but I think you are being slightly naive here. Retailers place an order and are given a delivery date from either a distributor or the source vendor. Too often that delivery date is never updated until after the delivery date is missed. SSD may be guilty of many evils, but bad sales tactics and poor customer service are two that go over the line in this case. They must rely on their source delivering on time just as you are relying on SSD to deliver based on their advertised schedule. Add a middle level distributor in the mix who must satidfy all orders submitted for a given district or area and you have but another circumstance of missed deliveries as there may be insufficient stock to satisfy all retail orders much less individual orders. Would you rather SSD state 'we have no earthly idea when these cameras will deliver'. No confidence there by golly.

There can be lots of reasons for missed delivery dates, but out right blaming SSD is stretching it.

Regards,
Trent

Ashley said:
-I remember reading on this site that they would be shipped
on 5/10.

-I guess it was just a wishful statement to get people to
pre-order with the sponsor.

-I wonder if as many people would have pre-ordered if they
knew that they wouldn't be shipped until a week after they
promised to ship them ?

-I bet people don't get their 990's until June.

-I guess there is nothing wrong with a company being hopeful about
its shipping dates, but when you take pre-orders on an item and
give them a date, a reasonable company would make sure they had the
item on that date.
-Wonder if they plan to make it up to the customers that
pre-ordered with some sort of compensation. Doubt It!
-Not so sure about StateStreet Direct anymore.
-Where has customer service gone?
-Beware of rotten sales tactics that may mislead customers.

ScottinKS · May 11, 2001

I can concur with this. My 990 order last summer was pushed back and I was left scrambling before the birth of my son. Everyone else was in the same boat missing the delivery dates, but I came across one dealer (sorry, can't remember who right now) who had some. I almost had to buy an Olympus, but I'm glad I have the 990 now.

You can be upset, but you also have the right to cancel your order if you find another. You may want to try cnet.com to search all the available vendors for availability if you have a deadline.

Good Luck.
Scott

Trent Mulkern said:
There can be lots of reasons for missed delivery dates, but out
right blaming SSD is stretching it.

Regards,
Trent

Ashley said:

-I remember reading on this site that they would be shipped
on 5/10.

-I guess it was just a wishful statement to get people to
pre-order with the sponsor.

-I wonder if as many people would have pre-ordered if they
knew that they wouldn't be shipped until a week after they
promised to ship them ?

-I bet people don't get their 990's until June.

-I guess there is nothing wrong with a company being hopeful about
its shipping dates, but when you take pre-orders on an item and
give them a date, a reasonable company would make sure they had the
item on that date.
-Wonder if they plan to make it up to the customers that
pre-ordered with some sort of compensation. Doubt It!
-Not so sure about StateStreet Direct anymore.
-Where has customer service gone?
-Beware of rotten sales tactics that may mislead customers.

Click to expand...

Steve43497 · May 11, 2001

I concur with Trent's comments. Dealers are at the mercy of the manufacturers and sometimes the middle-man distributors as well. Also many times the distributors will send out 1-2 units to every dealer initially to try and keep everyone happy and then fill the back orders later on.

I'm not saying this happened in your case but as a retailer we find that sometimes customers only "hear" what they want to "hear". Many times we give people a delivery date and preface our comments by saying that this is based on the current information we're getting from our suppliers. It does us no good to give a false delivery schedule as it just irritates the custome. In fact many times I feel I am too conservative with a delivery schedule and find myself losing sales to dealers who may be too optimistic or agressive. My motto is "Under Commit and Over Deliver".

Steve H

ScottinKS said:
You can be upset, but you also have the right to cancel your order
if you find another. You may want to try cnet.com to search all
the available vendors for availability if you have a deadline.

Good Luck.
Scott

Trent Mulkern said:

There can be lots of reasons for missed delivery dates, but out
right blaming SSD is stretching it.

Regards,
Trent

Ashley said:

-I remember reading on this site that they would be shipped
on 5/10.

-I guess it was just a wishful statement to get people to
pre-order with the sponsor.

-I wonder if as many people would have pre-ordered if they
knew that they wouldn't be shipped until a week after they
promised to ship them ?

-I bet people don't get their 990's until June.

-I guess there is nothing wrong with a company being hopeful about
its shipping dates, but when you take pre-orders on an item and
give them a date, a reasonable company would make sure they had the
item on that date.
-Wonder if they plan to make it up to the customers that
pre-ordered with some sort of compensation. Doubt It!
-Not so sure about StateStreet Direct anymore.
-Where has customer service gone?
-Beware of rotten sales tactics that may mislead customers.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

BillM · May 11, 2001

I'm getting frustrated. After having placed an order for a Kodak DC4800 (which was listed as being in stock) from another company. After waiting 3 weeks and getting several "we're expecting a shipment any day" messages, I cancelled that order and ordered the Nikon throught the SSD offer I saw here on dpreview. I liked (and trusted) this site, and thought I would have a better expierience.

I inquired about the shipment today (5/11) and received the following message - "Those cameras should be shipping anyday." That sounds awfully familiar.

The message on the SSD site (quoted in dpreview news) was "We will be shipping all orders for these by May 10th." Not "should be", "estimating" or "expecting to" but "will be". Wording like this should be used only if there is a very high likelihood that the deadline will be reached. I understand that delays happen that are beyond the control of the retailer, but it's also important to phrase things correctly to set customers expectations.

In hindsight, I'm a little disappointed at the folks here at dpreview.com. Posting an offer such as this as news doesn't seem appropriate for an "independent resource" (quoted from their About page.) Since they did post it as news, I feel they should take the responsibility to followup and report problems associated with this offer (such as this delay.)

Bill

Steve said:
I'm not saying this happened in your case but as a retailer we find
that sometimes customers only "hear" what they want to "hear". Many
times we give people a delivery date and preface our comments by
saying that this is based on the current information we're getting
from our suppliers. It does us no good to give a false delivery
schedule as it just irritates the custome. In fact many times I
feel I am too conservative with a delivery schedule and find myself
losing sales to dealers who may be too optimistic or agressive. My
motto is "Under Commit and Over Deliver".

Steve H

ScottinKS said:

You can be upset, but you also have the right to cancel your order
if you find another. You may want to try cnet.com to search all
the available vendors for availability if you have a deadline.

Good Luck.
Scott

Trent Mulkern said:

There can be lots of reasons for missed delivery dates, but out
right blaming SSD is stretching it.

Regards,
Trent

Ashley said:

-I remember reading on this site that they would be shipped
on 5/10.

-I guess it was just a wishful statement to get people to
pre-order with the sponsor.

-I wonder if as many people would have pre-ordered if they
knew that they wouldn't be shipped until a week after they
promised to ship them ?

-I bet people don't get their 990's until June.

-I guess there is nothing wrong with a company being hopeful about
its shipping dates, but when you take pre-orders on an item and
give them a date, a reasonable company would make sure they had the
item on that date.
-Wonder if they plan to make it up to the customers that
pre-ordered with some sort of compensation. Doubt It!
-Not so sure about StateStreet Direct anymore.
-Where has customer service gone?
-Beware of rotten sales tactics that may mislead customers.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

mccandless · May 11, 2001

It was written that orders would be shipped on 5/10.

The orders still aren't shipped as of today.

Cancel your order from SSD and just order it from Nikon
they have many in stock right now.

Or you can wait around another week or so. Your call

Good luck!

JohnK · May 11, 2001

Trent Mulkern said:
There can be lots of reasons for missed delivery dates, but out
right blaming SSD is stretching it.

Regards,
Trent

Ashley said:

-I remember reading on this site that they would be shipped
on 5/10.

-I guess it was just a wishful statement to get people to
pre-order with the sponsor.

-I wonder if as many people would have pre-ordered if they
knew that they wouldn't be shipped until a week after they
promised to ship them ?

-I bet people don't get their 990's until June.

-I guess there is nothing wrong with a company being hopeful about
its shipping dates, but when you take pre-orders on an item and
give them a date, a reasonable company would make sure they had the
item on that date.
-Wonder if they plan to make it up to the customers that
pre-ordered with some sort of compensation. Doubt It!
-Not so sure about StateStreet Direct anymore.
-Where has customer service gone?
-Beware of rotten sales tactics that may mislead customers.

Click to expand...

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SSD not shipping 990's till end of next week! maybe?

mccandless

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Trent Mulkern

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ScottinKS

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Steve43497

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BillM

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mccandless

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