Ordering from Olympus?

Over the past year, I have learned by experience that the WORST places to preorder popular products that trickle into distribution are the major stores (Amazon, Adorama, B&H, etc).  The best places to preorder are small less known stores that don't do much Internet business (but carry Olympus products and you have confidence in the store's business ethics).  The reason is that new products are allocated and bigger stores have so many more preorders that it can take very long to actually get your product.  But you can preorder at bigger stores without paying anything until shipment, so no problem with ordering everywhere just to get in line.

I have ordered many new hard-to-get products from the Olympus store.  They are much faster than the Amazons/B&H stores, but a bit slower than the really little guys.  I have been happy with the service.

However, they are not very advanced with their systems, so you won't get any information when you order as to how long the wait will be.  You just get notice one day via email that the package has shipped.  You can also call them and ask when they are getting shipment, but I've found their info to be not very reliable (50% faster, 50% slower) and they do make mistakes.  I think they struggle with out of date logistics, but they will be helpful if you call and don't scream at them.   Also, important to know that they will wait until all items are available to ship the order, so make separate orders if you want them to ship each item as it becomes available.

I would urge you to buy from Amazon instead.  Olympus has terrible customer service and even for buying accessories they are very unresponsive.  No one has a better return policy than Amazon: 30 days, no questions asked.  Buying direct from Olympus, I doubt that you would have an easy time if there were any issue (leakage, other problems) with the camera.