Amazon Prime Day is an auspicious day for many online shoppers in the US; it’s an annual event where the online retailer sells participating brands’ products at a some really good prices. For many photographers, it surely must’ve felt like Christmas as they bought up high-end DSLR cameras and equipment worth more than US$2000 (~RM8225) for less than US$100 (~RM411) each.
Thanks to a pricing error over on Amazon’s side, many of DSLR camera bodies worth upwards of US$5500 (~RM22618) were discovered to have been heavily discounted and were listed at US$94.50 (~RM388) per item. Specifically, the floodgates to the mass purchasing opened when someone had noticed a Sony’s A6000 and 16-50mm lens bundle going for that price.
Upon sharing the discovery, other Amazon Prime members began saying that they were seeing the same discounts too. Just to be clear, the cameras being sold on the site weren’t from 3rd party sellers; these were all products being sold and shipped by Amazon itself.
As mentioned at the start of the article, and as befitting human nature, several avid photographers began scooping up as many of these camera bodies and lenses as they could. One Amazon Prime member admitted to purchasing approximately US$10000 (~RM41100) worth of camera gear for a mere fraction of the price at US$900 (~RM3750).
Another Amazon Prime member who saw the deal also jumped in on the action; he purchased a Sony A6500, a Sony A7III body, and a Sony A9 and 24-70mm f/2.8GM bundle. By this time, though, Amazon seemed to have wizened up to its penny-deal mistake and locked him out of his account. Unfortunately, the damage was already done, and the buyer still got the Sony A7III and 10-18mm f/4.0 lens out of the other three orders.
For orders still stuck in Amazon’s backorder and not delivered, it’s likely that they’ll be cancelled and refunded to each corresponding Prime member. For products already passed on to its shipping partners, Amazon has no choice but to honour the purchases.
Of course, there were Amazon Prime members who missed out on this real once-in-a-lifetime sale. In fact, one member made an account on the Slickdeals particularly considering the incident. Jokingly commenting that he was depressed about missing the deal.
(Source: PetaPixel // Image: PetaPixel)
