Why is D60 in such short supply?

[droosan]

Why do all the online sellers say things like: "We will be shipping extremely limited quantities of D60 throughout the summer; get in line and prepare to wait weeks or months." ?

Is Canon having production problems or is it some kind of marketing strategy of which I am not aware?

Surely Canon must know that if they can't get them shipping they'll get stomped by the D100, if Nikon can get them shipping.

[Karl]

Demand is far greater than supply.

There's a reason D100's are in stock. People who are going to spend $2000 or more on a camera body are going to do their homework. They aren't going to just plink down $2000 at a cash register and say "Yeah, sure, that D100 will be good enough, i'll just live with the inferior lenses."

[philgabe]

It's an interesting question because same thing happens with lots of "expensive toys"...the Playstation 2 had the same issue when it came out. Same thing for the 1D. Manufacturers don't want to build up huge stocks before they start shipping new products and they tightly control the price at which the stuff is sold. Clearly demand far exceeded demand for the D60, 1D and Playstation 2, yet instead of raising price to lower the demand and equate demand and supply, manufacturers kept the price where it was and allocated the limited supply in a particular way.
It's weird to hear people complaint at the same time about (1) how expensive these things are and (2) that manufacturers can't keep up with demand. If (2) happens, the only solution would be to *raise* price even further and lower the demand to the point where supply can meet demand.
In that sense it's definitely a "marketing strategy" to keep prices artificially low. But I don't see any reason why manufacturers should limit supply and shipment when demand clearly exceeds the chosen supply level, as the only reason you would ever want to limit supply is to keep prices at a certain level (which they don't need here since demand is far greater than supply).
There are some instances where companies do that, for example supply of business class seat, number of seats in sports arenas, certain luxury products, etc. However, it doesn't seem to make any sense in this case.

Philippe

[jadams]

Consider how long it actually takes to make enough D60's to end the supply crunch. Would you rather that Canon built up suitable stock beforehand and delayed ANY shipment of the camera for a month, two, or three?

I would rather Canon got them out ASAP.

If you read the DPReview forums (any just about anywhere else where they post constant "I've Got Mine / I haven't Got Mine" messages) you'll see that shipments from Canon when through a null recently and then picked up. I don't think it's to far fetched to consider that Canon held stock to retrofit with the firmware upgrade. Now that the firmware upgrade is done, it seems that they're coming a lot more quicker than before.

Perhaps, as with most new products like this, Canon anticipated a "bug" that wouldn't be found until the cameras hit the field. Thus, they didn't want to get too many out there before the "fix". And I think that the ones that got the D60's right away are the ones that are:

1- More likely to find bugs and report them.
2- More likely to understand and work with Canon about bugs.

(i.e. they aren't general consumers dropping in their local store and picking one up "just because" -- they kinda know what they're getting in to)

If they crunch the supply to the point where you really have to work to get one, it kinda works in their favour to create "beta testers".

All points to the side, it stinks. But.... it ALWAYS happens. It's not just Canon. It's EVERYTHING.

Dell released the Inspiron 8200 -- within 20 minutes they were running a 2 month lead time on certain configurations.

This is just my outlook on it.... but what would I know, I bought a 1D. :D

Jasper