Amazon sparked a frenzy and made headlines last week after an apparent pricing glitch allowed customers to buy extremely expensive cameras and lenses, including one worth $13,000, for just $94.48 each. Today we have a closer look at how one photographer made out like a bandit.
At the time we originally reported on the strange “sale,” some photographers had already received their ultra-cheap gear, others reported that it was in transit, and others said that their purchases were on backorder.
While it was assumed that the in-transit shipments were essentially guaranteed to arrive in their lucky purchasers’ hands, many people believed that Amazon would catch wind of the story and cancel the backordered orders to reverse and reduce the mistake.
But it seems that has not been the case: Amazon appears to still be honoring the unbelievable price errors by shipping out the backordered products as inventory is replenished.
One photographer we spoke to for the original report ordered several Sony cameras and lenses during the glitch before Amazon froze his account for suspicious activity. A $2,000 Sony a7 III and $850 Sony 10-18mm arrived on his doorstep the next day.
While Amazon was telling the photographer that some of his other orders would arrive within days, the retailer stated that the Sony a9 he ordered was backordered until August. Fully expecting that the a9 order could be canceled before the camera was back in stock, the photographer was, needless to say, quite happy when the a9 showed up this week, days ahead of schedule.
In the end, the photographer purchased two $550 Sony a6000 and 16-50mm kits, an $850 Sony 10-18mm, an $1,100 Sony a6500, a $2,000 Sony a7 III, a $2,200 Sony 24-70mm f/2.8, and a $3,500 Sony a9.
Two of the camera and lens sets were also purchased as bundles, so the photographer paid a total of $500 (plus California sales tax) for a whopping $10,750 worth of camera gear.
That’s 95% off.
Previously a Canon DSLR shooter, the photographer is now selling the majority of his Canon gear to switch over to Sony.
The photographer tells PetaPixel that’s planning to sell the two a6000s and the a9 while keeping a7 III, a6500, and all the lenses.
P.S. If you’re one of the lucky people who scored a major haul during this bizarre Amazon Prime Day event, please send us photos and details of what you received if you’d like to be included in updates to this post. While there are crazy reports out there of what people managed to order (i.e. 5 Canon 800mm lenses worth a combined total of $65,000), most stories are unverified, and it’s still unclear what the scope of this error was (though we do know it spanned pretty much all the major camera brands).
