The Canon Direct Store has been running a very hot 15%-off refurbished stacking sale since Cyber Monday. Unfortunately, many customers have experienced significant delays, with several readers reporting that their orders are stuck in an “inventory fulfilled” state and yet to ship.
We’re not sure what the situation is — there have been many Canon Store challenges this year. We’ve seen a lot of “phantom stock”, where the store will show “1 in-stock” for a long time, but orders go straight to a “backorder” state. We’re hoping all of these great 15%-off deals will get filled in the end.
Our recommendation is to remain patient — check on your order status frequently. Patience is key, you’re getting a great deal, so be prepared to tolerate a long wait (which includes the 90+ minute hold to get phone support on your orders). For future deals, submitting your order early in a sale (and upgrading to expedited shipping options) seems to help in getting your item shipped out faster.
The 15%-off stacking refurbished sale ends on December 24th, but most things are out-of-stock and cannot be ordered. For all items below (except for the T7 kit, which is showing 20+), the stock is so low it may be “phantom stock”, but the prices are great and it may be worth trying your luck — and patience.
- EOS-1D X Mark II is now $3399.32
- EOS 5D Mark IV is now $1758.65
- EOS Rebel T7 with 18-55mm and 75-300mm is now $305.15
- EF 11-24mm f/4L USM is now $2294.15
- EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM is now $840.65
- EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM is now $288.14
- EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II is now $4691.32
- Speedlite 430EX III-RT is now $169.14
Do we know from where items from the Canon Direct Store are shipping out? Previous orders from them came in via FedEx. At the moment I have a shipment coming in from Okemos, MI via USPS (but I don’t know what this package is). Could this possibly be it? Does Canon Direct ever ship out of here?
I believe Canon has a few warehouses. My EOS RP was shipped from Aurora, IL. My RP + 24-240mm kit Which showed in stock when I ordered on 01 Dec 2020 1:38am eastern is still on back order status.
Hi JK,
Did you receive RP with 24-240mm kit. No update from Canon. It is still in back ordered status. Price went back to original price as Canon ended discounts. Don’t know how long they are going to fulfill the orders.
Thanks
Never mind, I figured out the package is something else. I’ll just keep waiting for the lens.
The shopping experience for the Canon Direct Store has been horrible for me for years. Credit cards (that work fine at other places) getting rejected for no apparent reason, same for a prepaid Mastercard (I used the same card a few days later with Adorama – your $1700 loss, Canon), of course the issues with phantom stock, signature required at the shipping address with no option to redirect to a FedEx / UPS location (so I had to take a day off of work), …
Perhaps Canon should outsource the web store front and order fulfillment to an Internet merchant who knows what they are doing (like B&H or Adorama).
I have an order open with them since Dec 15 – they had sent me a Canon RAISE champion $250 coupon that morning (*), and I was fighting the website all day to get the order out – at check-out the coupon was worth nearly $30 less, but in the end I did not care after not being able to get a hold of a sale person to explain the problem; so far I haven’t seen any order fulfillment let alone shipping updates – I will just have to keep patient. I don’t need this item for Christmas, so it is ok, but frustrating none-the-less.
(*) I imagine Dec 15 was a busy day for their store with all the Canon RAISE Champions looking at using their coupon. Canon RAISE was another website botched by Canon. Remember Canon Irista?
My advice to anyone who needs these with in a specific time frame please stay away from Canon direct store. If you can wait eternally go ahead and order. Price wise there is no big advantage on most items when you add tax Vs ordering from B&H with Payboo card basically saves you tax.
When they’re running a big sale (like this one), even with the added tax, it is much better than the B&H+PayBoo. For example, even assuming 8% tax rate, the RF 70-200mm for $2229 (tax-in) beats all other options, including our best street price.
I agree that people should set expectations for a long wait (weeks, a month, or perhaps even ‘never’).
Well, yesterday they suddenly overnighted it and it just came today.