D200 on Target for 12-15-05

Saw this recently:

 

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-7889-8110

 

Nikon is trying to get in under the holiday crunch I suppose:)

I don't see why? The waiting list at all the local shots (DFW) is way longer than the number

of cameras that the shops expect to receive. I'm number 31 and I've been told not to

expect to get one in the first wave.

I'm simply relaying the news story I read - I'm guessing that the quantities that certain dealers receive are relative to their total volume of Nikon in total sales. Hence - B&H will get a few thousand perhaps & my local store 5 or 10? I don't know.

 

Be interesting to watch how this all plays out.

I tend to believe Bjorn Rorslett's claim that Nikon was originally going to announce the D200 on September 1. Recall that there was a very strong build up to that date, but there were apparently some last-minute technical problems that delayed it for two months. Now for the most part the D200 is going to miss the 2005 holiday (gift) season. That is a fairly negative to Nikon's profits.

 

Recall that early this year, the D2X was in short supply for about 3 to 4 months, until around May or June. Expect the D200 to be in short supply for a couple of months as well.

Shun

 

I can't imagine too many people "gift giving" a D200 - $1,650-$1,750 camera. One would think 85-90% of purchases will be made by photographers for their own use. I don't see what the holiday season would have to do with it with the exception of the person who spends his limited resource on gift giving and has to pass on the D200 for now.

Robert, maybe you are right. Being Chinese, I don't even buy any Christmas gifts at all. :-) But I can see a few well-to-do folks buying a D200 for their spouse and children.

That and the holiday season gives everyone an excuse for

getting or buying a new camera or gear.

 

From a marketing standpoint, hitting the largest purchasing

period of the year is a must for many product makers and

retailers. I think Nikon might have missed the boat on this one.

 

But if the product is as good as they say, then it will sell itself,

regardless of the season.

"Recall that early this year, the D2X was in short supply for about 3 to 4 months, until around

May or June. Expect the D200 to be in short supply for a couple of months as well."

 

But does that really follow? Wouldn't you expect Nikon to learn from that distribution

problem and fill the channel more fully at rollout of the D200? Given the fact that they seem

to have responded almost directly to their user base with the features of the D200 I wouldn't

be at all surprised to see them react to the shortage by making sure it doesn't happen this

time too.

I'm torn between getting one early...and waiting to see if there are any bugs in the early production runs. Any thoughts on that? I hate to send stuff back for repairs.

"Given the fact that they seem to have responded almost directly to their user base with the features of the D200 I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them react to the shortage by making sure it doesn't happen this time too."

 

sorry to disagree with you, but manufacturers LOVE shortages and often manufacture them. Think of the new X box for example, or the old cabage patch dolls, etc. "Shortages" keep the hype going. I would guess that the last thing Nikon wants to do is have an adequate supply in thepipeline, as you suggest.

 

It is in their best interests not to have the camera easily available.

I can see that angle. If that was their strategy with the D2X I'm not sure it did them any favors

but with a more consumer focused unit like the D200 it would make more sense.

if you are doing this professionally , or at least professionally enough for the IRS (US

federal tax agency) purposes, there is advantage in terms of your taxes to buy gear just

before the end of the year even if you don't get delivery until January or Feb.: you get the

full deduction for this years taxes.

Very good point Ellis.

<I>there is advantage in terms of your taxes to buy gear just before the end of the year even f you don't get delivery until January or Feb.</I>

<P>

Ellis is one of the people who provides the best advices here but also has the worst typos. To most of us, "f you" has a specific meaning. :-) I am sure his infant daughter was distracting him when he was typing.

<P>

I have corrected the original post.

"Nikon is trying to get in under the holiday crunch I suppose :)"

 

 

My store is expecting D200s in mid-December. However, I doubt that Nikon will be able to ship the D200 in sufficient quantities to make the D200 a runaway holiday bestseller, the way the D70 was.

As far as the initial shortage is concerned, it is very common that popular camera bodies are hard to get for several months. I reall that sveral years back, the F5 and F100 were very hard to find for months. That was partly why I waited over a year in both cases before I got mine. I was also waiting for other people to discover the inital bugs and for the price to come down a bit.

 

The problem is that camera bodies are hardware products. You need parts, tools, machines and labor to produce them. If you set up some huge manufacturing capacity to meet the initial demand, when that subsides a few months later, you'll be stuck with a lot of idle assembly lines and will have to layoff a lot of workers you spent time to train. That model simply doesn't work. Instead, you set up sufficient manufacturing capacity that you can sustain for most of the product cycle. As some people pointed out, the initial shortage is in a way positive publicity.

 

On the other hand, if your product is software like Microsoft's, manufacturing cost is next to zero for additional copies. You simply copy more CDs or have a larger server so that more people can download.

Thanks, Shun.

 

I agree with you that my typo to typing ratio is terrible . Usually I'm trying to write fast

and then not proof reading or I have my daughter squirming while she is sitting in my lap.

Either way thank you

for

putting up with me.

 

p.s. Proof reading the above paragraph, I caught about 10 typos.

Ellis, as long as your message comes across, which IMO there is no real problem each time, this is fine. We know you didn't mean to say f u. :-) We always appreciate your insight.

I've never seen any credible evidence that Nikon was planning to release the D200 in

September other than that they announced a press conference ﾅ for different cameras. Could

you point me to some, if it exists?

 

I also love how Nikon has "missed the sales boat" but they won't have enough to fill demand.

Reminds me of Yogi Berra's famous statement: "Nobody comes here anymore ﾅ it's too

crowded."

Ryan, Nikon missing the holiday sales boat AND not having enough D200 bodies to fill demand are not mutually exclusive issues. They are related facets of the same issue- namely that Nikon has exhibited a marked inability to develop and deliver DSLRs to the market in a timely fashion; in contrast to Canon, which is constantly refining its line while rarely backordering product.

 

 

I haven't seen the most recent PMA statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised if photo retailers as a group sold at least a third of their hard goods for the year in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Nikon will largely miss that window of opportunity by shipping out short orders of D200s in mid December. By next Christmas, the D200 will be old news.

 

 

If Nikon delivered 50 D200s to my store tomorrow, I guarantee we'd be sold out by Christmas. Instead, buyers will purchase other big ticket items- maybe stereos or TVs, and not in our camera store.

 

 

Sure, my store will sell the few D200s we receive before Christmas and we'll probably have a waiting list through the end of January. But Nikon won't sell nearly as many D200s as would have sold if the D200 had shipped in sufficient quantity by late November.

 

 

I would also note that Nikon's inability to produce and deliver product as quickly as Canon leaves a bad taste in Nikon dealers' mouths. For reasons passing understanding, its taken Nikon three years to field a replacement for the D100, and Nikon won't even be supplying the product in quantity before Christmas- its bad for customers and it means lost sales for Nikon dealers.

"Nikon won't even be supplying the product in quantity before Christmas"

 

Shouldn't we wait and see how many are delivered on the 15th before making unequivocal

statements about short supply?

"if you are doing this professionally , or at least professionally enough for the IRS (US federal tax agency) purposes, there is advantage in terms of your taxes to buy gear just before the end of the year even if you don't get delivery until January or Feb.: you get the full deduction for this years taxes."

 

Ellis - your insights and recommendations on this forum pertaining to photography have been invaluable to amateurs like me. I am afraid however that your tax advice needs a little help. I think that you may have confused two concepts in your comment about buying before year end for tax deduction purposes.

 

For the record, a piece of business equipment can be depreciated ("written off") only after it is placed in service. So, were you to buy a new piece of gear in the last week of December and pay for it, but do not take delivery until January, the item is NOT deductible in 2005. It is a 2006 deduction.

 

What you may have been thinking of is the case where you take delivery of the equipment in December and charge the cost to your credit card in December, but do not actually pay the credit card bill until January. In that case, since the peice of equipment was placed in service in 2005, you ARE permitted to write off the item in 2005.

 

Just thought it would be useful to clarify that point.

 

Of course, if you were planning to buy a piece of equipment in the beginning of 2006, then it might be wise to buy it (and take delivery of it) in December instead to get the benefit of the deduction at April 15, 2006 rather than on April 15, 2007 had you waited until January to buy the item. Unfortunately, in the case of the D200 - it may not be possible to put your hands on the little devil before the end of 05.

Just an added point to my above comments about the tax deductibility of equipment purchases. I earn my living (and fund my very expensive photography hobby) as a CPA and I am a much better tax professional than photographer.

 

I am however working hard to close the talent gap between my occupation and my avocation....Ellis, you keep helping guys like me out with the photography and I'll try to help out with the taxes.

 

:)

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to discuss the D200 in great details with a Nikon rep. They are indeed shipping limited quanity on December 15 and the waiting lists are quite long. Just at K&S, they claimed that they had signed up like 40+ people on Friday and Saturday alone. The Nikon rep's wile guess was that shortage would last until March or so.

 

See my other thread for more details:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00EOby

 

My take is that I am very glad there are so many people testing the early samples for the benefit of the rest of us. :-)

As promising as the D200 looks like on paper, I will not buy a camera without first

handling it. And I'll wait for the first recall anyway, or the first firmware upgrade. There's

no rush.

 

As far as marketing strategies are concerned, I am all for Nikon producing a much smaller

number of new bodies than Canon who release them one after the other like bean cans. I

don't mind a little backlog.

 

And the D70 seems to have shared pretty well so far, don't you think?

 

Nikon's doing okay.