Amazon Restricts its Sales of Cameras to Continental US

BabaGanoush

I don't know if anyone else has noticed it, but Amazon is now restricting the sales of cameras to the continental US, which means it will not ship cameras to my home state of Hawaii. I don't know if they will refuse to ship to Alaska, but that's probably the case, also. I believe this restriction is because of strict US postal regulations which prohibit air shipments of Li ion batteries. Tonight, when I went to the Amazon Web page to inquire when they expected the D500 to be in stock, there was a disclaimer posted there, which said that the camera could not be shipped outside the continental US. I then checked the Amazon Web pages for a few Sony and Panasonic cameras, and the same notice was posted for each of them.

NSXTypeR

Hmm, you're not allowed to ship by air, but that doesn't stop you from putting it on a ship. It doesn't make much sense, but hey, I don't make the rules. That means you won't be able to take advantage of Amazon Prime, but that seems a little extreme to stop all shipments.

In that case, the Boeing 787 should never fly, as there are LiPo batteries on that plane too.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ironheart

I see no such notice. I just ordered a D500 and had it shipped to my Hawaii address, and then cancelled the order. I hope I don't wind up with two ;-) where are you seeing the warning? Oh, I also used "standard shipping"

niemeyjt

As a passenger, when I carry power tools like drills the tools MUST go in the hold for security reasons but the batteries MUST be in my hand baggage for fire reasons. I understood it was more about being able to extinguish a fire in the cabin more easily.

As for 787s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner_battery_problems

J

Ironheart

@niemeyjt You have it exactly correct. In fact one of the strategies suggested by @WestEndFoto to get your camera gear on as carry-on is to load up on li-ion batteries
As far as @BabaGanoush 's issue, I doubt it has anything to do with batteries, probably just a glitch in Amazon's system, as per USPS regulation it is perfectly okay to ship li-ion batteries via air as long as you meet certain (pretty reasonable) conditions:
http://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52apxc_044.htm
And like I said, they were perfectly happy to ship it to me ^#(^

BabaGanoush

The following notice appears on the Amazon Web page of every camera I've looked at this morning, including the D500:

"Special Shipping Information: Due to federal and international regulations, this product can only be shipped within the continental United States. "

It appears just below the list of specifications for the camera. It must be something new because I had no trouble buying my D7200 from Amazon this past November.

As for Amazon Prime, unless you are interested in Prime videos and other Prime offerings, Amazon Prime is not worth a heck of a lot for those of us who live in Hawaii. Quite understandably they don't/can't offer overnight shipping. The free standard shipping to Hawaii with Prime is 3-7 days. However, for the last half-dozen orders I've placed since the beginning of the year it has been taking Amazon 7-10 days just to assemble my orders and prepare them for shipping, even though I have not been ordering anything unusual and everything I've ordered was listed as being in stock. I've never encountered such long delays before, even without Prime membership. Since I tend to bundle my purchases, my orders are almost always well above the non-Prime free shipping threshold, and given these recent long delays in shipping and the new restrictions they've placed on camera sales, I plan to let my Prime membership lapse once it expires.

Ironheart

@BabaGanoush I would shoot them a note. I've even changed my primary address to my Hawaii one, and no such warning. You sure you don't have a firearm or radioactive material in your shopping cart? Do you live on a military base? I can't seem to generate that message. I'm not a prime member, and I'm specifying standard shipping.
Yes, long shipping and handling times are de rigueur when you live on a dot in the middle of the ocean.

nukuEX2

They are saying that probably because they don't want the high rez camera and high power optics to end up in the wrong hands. And someone told me this while back that they purposely downgrade the specs or omit certain features of the camera and lens models sold out side of Western countries. i.e. US, EU, and JPN.

BabaGanoush

nukuEX2 said:

They are saying that probably because they don't want the high rez camera and high power optics to end up in the wrong hands. And someone told me this while back that they purposely downgrade the specs or omit certain features of the camera and lens models sold out side of Western countries. i.e. US, EU, and JPN.

Over the past two years when I've ordered a Panasonic P&S camera for my wife or a Panasonic MFT camera for me I've gotten a similar refusal, but not so explicit. It usually showed up after I ordered the camera, with a follow-up email from Amazon claiming they were not allowed to ship the camera to Hawaii. Of course, I immediately turned around and ordered the same camera from B+H and the order sailed right through. I hardly think a small P&S camera or 16 MP MFT camera is such high tech that it cannot be shipped to Hawaii for fear of it falling into the "wrong hands." After all, most of the same cameras---and cameras like the D810 with much higher resolution---can be purchased from the local Best Buy store, which is just a 20 minute drive away. And last November, why would Amazon sell me a D7200 without issuing a similar complaint if this were an issue?

Well, just to test the system, and Amazon's resolve, this morning, around four hours ago, I put in an order for a Coolpix AW130 camera, which I intend as a backup to my Nikon 1 AW1 camera. The Amazon on-line system took my order and immediately sent me an email confirmation for my order. So far I have not received a "sorry, you're out of luck" follow-up message from them. My wife saw the original disclaimer message on the Amazon Web page, by the way, so she can confirm I was not imagining anything. All I can do now is to wait for an email notification that the camera's been shipped or else a message saying the order's been rejected.

And NO, I do not and did not have a firearm or a RPG weapon in my shopping basket.

BabaGanoush

Ironheart said:

Yes, long shipping and handling times are de rigueur when you live on a dot in the middle of the ocean.

Part of the problem with Amazon's shipping to Hawaii is that they use something called parcel pool. Back in the day, when they used to provide a lot more information about the cross-country wanderings of my orders, I found it amusing to follow the trail of the package as it was driven by truck literally across the breadth of the country, from the East Coast to the West Coast. There it would be put on a flight to Hawaii. And when it arrived here on Oahu, the package would be handed over to the USPS for home delivery. These days they don't reveal nearly as much detail about the Brownian-motion like movements of their shipments so I can't track my packages as closely as I could before.

Ironheart

You think Oahu is bad, try Kauai. There is no Best Buy, no electronics store of any kind. Just a wall mart, and a small one to boot. When Costco opened here about 10 years ago now, it was like the heavens parted and the Angels started singing. Sears closed a few years ago. Everything has to go through Oahu first, and then get on a barge before getting here a few weeks later. But we like the remoteness, so no complaints

BabaGanoush

@Ironheart: There was a Nikon shop in Honolulu on King St., near the UH, called Lighthaus. When it came to Nikon gear, I used to deal exclusively with them. I bought my D800 from them (which arrived several months before all the big box stores received their shipments) along with various lenses, one of them used that was in pristine condition, and I sold them my old gear for trade-in. Unfortunately the owners closed that store in March last year. They still have a store in Kailua-Kona and another in Kihei on Maui, but unfortunately for you they have nothing on Kauai. I will be going over to Maui later this year to take a snorkeling trip to Molokini. I am planning to stop by their Kihei shop and will probably pick up some new gear from them.

spraynpray

nukuEX2 said:

They are saying that probably because they don't want the high rez camera and high power optics to end up in the wrong hands. And someone told me this while back that they purposely downgrade the specs or omit certain features of the camera and lens models sold out side of Western countries. i.e. US, EU, and JPN.

I don't get this conspiracy theory - it's a joke right? Can someone explain?

WestEndFoto

It is the Establishment. The Dark Side is strong in the Establishment.

Ironheart

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you >-)

haroldp

Paranoids of the world unite ... If you dare !

nukuEX2

spraynpray said:

nukuEX2 said:

They are saying that probably because they don't want the high rez camera and high power optics to end up in the wrong hands. And someone told me this while back that they purposely downgrade the specs or omit certain features of the camera and lens models sold out side of Western countries. i.e. US, EU, and JPN.

I don't get this conspiracy theory - it's a joke right? Can someone explain?

Hey, Don't blame me I didn't come up with that. actually there is some credence to that idea When PS2 came out Sony was banned from selling PS2 in the Middle east for number of years because one of the signal processing chips was the identical to the processor on the Maverick missiles. try and buy high powered night vision goggle from Amazon There is a notice saying they can't ship it out of U.S

NSXTypeR

nukuEX2 said:

spraynpray said:

nukuEX2 said:

They are saying that probably because they don't want the high rez camera and high power optics to end up in the wrong hands. And someone told me this while back that they purposely downgrade the specs or omit certain features of the camera and lens models sold out side of Western countries. i.e. US, EU, and JPN.

I don't get this conspiracy theory - it's a joke right? Can someone explain?

Hey, Don't blame me I didn't come up with that. actually there is some credence to that idea When PS2 came out Sony was banned from selling PS2 in the Middle east for number of years because one of the signal processing chips was the identical to the processor on the Maverick missiles. try and buy high powered night vision goggle from Amazon There is a notice saying they can't ship it out of U.S

That was lunchtime gossip right around the time I was in 7th grade. I don't think the PS2 hardware was anywhere near the hardware required for any missiles.

nukuEX2

NSXTypeR said:

nukuEX2 said:

spraynpray said:

nukuEX2 said:

They are saying that probably because they don't want the high rez camera and high power optics to end up in the wrong hands. And someone told me this while back that they purposely downgrade the specs or omit certain features of the camera and lens models sold out side of Western countries. i.e. US, EU, and JPN.

I don't get this conspiracy theory - it's a joke right? Can someone explain?

Hey, Don't blame me I didn't come up with that. actually there is some credence to that idea When PS2 came out Sony was banned from selling PS2 in the Middle east for number of years because one of the signal processing chips was the identical to the processor on the Maverick missiles. try and buy high powered night vision goggle from Amazon There is a notice saying they can't ship it out of U.S

That was lunchtime gossip right around the time I was in 7th grade. I don't think the PS2 hardware was anywhere near the hardware required for any missiles.

There is an actual article way back in 2000.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=4620

BabaGanoush

The message I saw on the Amazon Web site---when I logged in as myself, as an anonymous buyer, or as my wife from her machine---about limiting camera sales to the continental US is now gone. To confirm that, I checked several Nikon cameras, Sony cameras, and Panasonic cameras. They have also notified me by email that they've shipped the Nikon AW130 I ordered.

Moderator: You can close this discussion thread. It is pau (=finished).