Amazon Experience (85L)

I ordered an 85L-II last week on Friday from Amazon for next day (Saturday) delivery ($3.99 Prime Membership). My main reason was that shipping from Adorama and BH is usually via UPS which sucks in my area regarding delivery time and depot pickup due to the signature requirement. I've wasted too many hours chasing down packages with UPS. FedEx (not FedEx ground) can usually find a package and get it to me with just a phone call. UPS requires going to the depot, usually waiting in a horrendous line and then it is hit or miss whether or not they can find it. Did I mention that I do not like UPS?

To make a long story short, the 85L-II arrived on Saturday (overnight UPS) but when I opened the package it was obvious that I got a returned item based on the packing material and fingerprints. I did not pay this amount of money to receive a poorly repacked returned item.

After navigating the Amazon site for a few minutes I found the call-back screen. They make it extremely difficult to find, by the way. The human customer service is stunning, to say the least, and I think it may have to do with my order volume and buying patterns (I buy quite a bit for personal and business use from Amazon).

They apologized up and down, profusely and often about my order and already spiffed me a total of $75 in credits. But, the most annoying thing is that they couldn't process the reorder until Monday(today, waiting as I write this) because it requires a manager's approval. I guess they don't have any managers working on the weekends or something. Strange for a 7x24 operation but I guess its a large, political organization so I can live with that. I already shipped the bad lens back from Kinkos and it showed up in FedEx tracking so I'm pretty sure it will arrive at their returns depot without any problems. Oh, the other annoying thing is that because of the value they did not issue a prepaid tag. For some reason I had to pay return postage and insurance and they will refund that to me.

But, back to my motivation for using Amazon is that as a Prime member I can get $3.99 overnight Saturday delivery. I prefer to use BH or Adorama but the weekday delivery by UPS is just not worth the grief it causes due to nobody being home to sign for it during the week and the 12-hour delivery window on the "out-for-delivery" day that UPS has. Additionally, you can't reroute depot pickup until a delivery has a failed attempt which is another huge annoyance with UPS ground.

Anyway, I expect to receive a replacement by tomorrow and maybe Wednesday at the latest. The major annoyance now is that they can't give me tracking information yet until the manager approves it so its impossible to schedule time to wait for the delivery attempt without knowing when to wait.

I'm OK with this. I have an event on Saturday and I'm also leaving for Japan next Wednesday so I would like to have this lens for those two occasions if possible.

My experience with Amazon has been nothing but the most impressive I have ever had with ANY company! In the last four years that I have been shopping with them I have literally spent tens of thousands of dollars through them on literally ANYTHING I can find to buy through them and they have done everything under the sun to make sure I have happy on the rare occasions an issue arose. Just thought Id add my 2 cents.

Was anything wrong with the lens?

Pretty easy to work around that--When I buy from B&H, Adorama, or any other shop that requires a signature for a big-ticket item, I have them ship to my office. Problem solved.

The advantage is that with B&H/Adorama I'm confident that I'll speak to a photographer if I have an issue related to the equipment, nor have I ever gotten a repackaged lens.

Yeah that would def bug me. Seems like it worked out though, a few days without your lens and a free $75 for your trouble. I think this is a positive review of their service?

JS

I agree with the above statements, Amazon is nothing short of impressive in service. It is only on the rarest of ocasions that I dont use them. Never had a problem with returns, ever. I would have used the lens for my event on saturday night and returned it on monday if there was something wrong with it. What was wrong with the lens, other than the packaging and the finger print?

Amazon has world class customer service that reassures me I won't go wrong on any purchase I make.

While I hate talking to Amazon over the phone, their support has been impeccable!
I once was going to post a lens on here and I went to Amazon to get the exact date I bought it, and I found I could actually RETURN the lens rather than selling it here (sorry, POTN). I had the lens for almost 6 months! Sure Amazon took a small restock fee, but all-in-all, I lost only a little bit of money.
Extended rental I guess?

Seriously though, ordering camera stuff through Amazon has been pretty pleasant.

So far, yes, very positive. I wanted to put it out there just to share my experience. The important point is that this has not changed my attitude towards ordering from Amazon one bit. I am still a loyal customer and plan to remain so.

john stakes wrote in post #10987436
Yeah that would def bug me. Seems like it worked out though, a few days without your lens and a free $75 for your trouble. I think this is a positive review of their service?

JS

ben_r_ wrote in post #10987209
My experience with Amazon has been nothing but the most impressive I have ever had with ANY company! In the last four years that I have been shopping with them I have literally spent tens of thousands of dollars through them on literally ANYTHING I can find to buy through them and they have done everything under the sun to make sure I have happy on the rare occasions an issue arose. Just thought Id add my 2 cents.

I've felt mixed with them..I've received a lot of items from them with little to no packaging in the boxes, leaving the items to basically flop around inside the box

The iPod Nano I ordered for my mom arrived in what would be best described as a cardboard "envelope" that had no sealing at ALL on the bottom, which meant the package could have opened and the ipod could have fallen out of the package...it was their "eco green-friendly" packaging and it sucked, to say the least..

Yes, I've ordered from Amazon and not a 3rd party....

Service is good though...

And to be honest i've had this problem with a LOT of retailers as of late, they all seem to be skimping out on packaging whenever im ordering something, usually not packing things uniformally, or using inadequate packing...if the item is flopping around in the box it is NOT properly packed...

I guess one advantage of using a mega-seller like Amazon is that their volume is so massive that the return of a $2K lens is something nobody will even flinch at.

I love Amazon, they are reliable, have free shipping, and there's almost nothing you can't find on their website.

Compared to dealing with B&H they were a dream come true. B&H took 4 days to ship me a lens they had in stock. They told me, the reason it took so long to ship was because I live so close to New York. Essentially the closer you live the longer they will wait to ship your order. So if you order a lens to be sent to PA UPS Ground, and someone in CA orders a lens to be shipped UPS Ground. They will go out of their way to fulfill all the CA orders before they even think about processing PA orders.

After hearing that, it was the last first and last time I bought from them. I shop at Adorama, Amazon, and my local camera shop.

If you use the Amazon website you can arrange for an exchange without any human intervention, including printing a return label.

+10 on Amazon customer service. Very very good with shipping, returns, price, and everything else. I have nothing but praises from my years of experience with them.

I've seen reports of this in the past and it's one of the reasons I shy away from Amazon for bodies or lenses. Their return service is good though and allow you to print a return label so you don't pay to ship something back.