On 10/16/06 1:38 PM, "Joseph Tainter", <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But I cannot believe Pentax's reason for the delay. If production > started a month ago, Pentax should have about 13,000 K10D cameras by > now. It makes no sense that these are just sitting in a warehouse rather > than earning the company a return on its investment. Pentax hasn't done > anything like this with previous products. Hi Joe, I share your concerns but this seems to be really true. Normally, the shareholders of Pentax won't allow this sort of thing under a normal circumstance. But this is not a normal circumstance. Besides, I am no longer sure that 13,000units/mo figure is correct. This was probably set very cautiously before they found this overwhelming orders. I am sure they have capacity to produce more. This subject is also vigorously discussed in Japan. Japanese market is also not getting any. All preorders have been delayed. It is rather amazing that there seems to be very little complaint (certainly much disappointment). Here is the way I understand from the discussion by people seemingly in the know. 1. This measure is not about the Japanese domestic market that can be easily taken care of. It is rather more about the overseas markets wherein the form of the delivery contracts is different from the domestic. Normally, Pentax (or probably any other camera mfrs) have tight contracts with importers/distributors in each country, which stipulate the "simultaneous release in the world", and the contracted quantity to be delivered by then. 2. They cannot discriminate the buyers by different delivery dates, like one country can get certain qty while another country would get the delivery one week later etc. Also, they cannot divert one half of the qty to be delivered to a certain country to another country etc. 3. Pentax were probably negotiating with each importer for the smaller initial delivery qty without penalty, but obviously no one agreed. Of course they won't, as they know they can sell. So, there was no option left for Pentax but to conform to their original contract, hence rather a delayed delivery date. Perhaps no definitive delivery date promise was stipulated in the original contracts, except of course the planned one. So, it was really that much overwhelming demand which has caused this situation. Sure, there would be an additional month worth of warehousing expense etc, but hopefully it could be easily depreciated by the better sales (much better one). I believe the shipment must have already started as the product becomes available. They just cannot sell until the release date (and all ordered qty is delivered). I have just noticed that Nikon announced the delay (again!) of their new zoom Nikkor 70-300mm for more than 2 months. They seem to have a chronic problem like this. The reason in this case? You guessed it. "Overwhelming and more than anticipated orders". Sounds familiar :-). Ken -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
