Camera Distribution Details

The place for questions about shooting with Blackmagic Cameras.
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ckmayeux

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Camera Distribution Details

PostThu Feb 14, 2013 4:02 am

I saw the following on another message board. This makes perfect sense to me and is what I have suspected. Hope this helps!

["This is kinda long but some may find this helpful. I asked the US office about B&H and Adorama sending out Dec/Jan orders when others (like me) haven't got their April order. Dan May wrote back and gave me permission to post this.

"Hey Tim,

Let me take a stab at giving some very non specific information that still might be helpful.

The short answer is Blackmagic Design USA fulfills orders to our Distribution partner in the US. Then our Distribution partner fulfills orders to the resellers based on when their orders were placed and how many they ordered.

Blackamagic Design does not really have visibility on how many a reseller has 'sold through' to end user customers. We have a basic idea from our Distribution partner what resellers have placed on order by month. We've worked with them to try to figure out 'fair' ways to get the product out to dealers, again based on the time they ordered and the qty.

Here is a horribly simplified example using completely fictitious numbers.

Let's say Dealer A placed an order for 1000 cameras on April 20th, Dealer B placed orders for 200 cameras on April 20th, and Dealer C placed orders for 200 on May 15th. The Disti will break up a shipment of cameras to try to be fair to everyone. So dealer A may get 60% of the cameras, dealer B may get 25% of the camera, and dealer C may get 15% of the cameras in an incoming shipment that has reached the Distribution partner.

That's not exact math being used there, just an example of how things are roughly being split within our territory. So don't look too hard into that example because it only is meant to give the gist. The problem is of course that there are hundreds dealers that have ordered cameras in the US, ranging from a handful of units to… well lets say way way more than a few units, and spread out now over 10 months. We obviously can't give all of them to just the guys that are massive, nor is it horribly fair to give 100% to someone that ordered 5 cameras in August (another random example).

However all of this has no relevance to when an end user customer may get his camera. Let's say in our previous example Dealer A had 80% of his cameras spoken for by end users that placed orders in April, and Dealer B only had orders for about 10% of what they placed orders for back in April. Even though Dealer A is getting more cameras, Dealer B might be getting less units but actually sending units to people ahead of the first dealer. Or it could be completely reversed. We don't really know when customers are going to get their individual orders.

It's awfully complicated, and I don't think I've probably done the best in explaining it! Of course it wouldn't be a problem if we just had truck loads of cameras coming the past few months, though that is obviously getting better every week as the sensor supply improves. So everyone (Blackmagic, the Distribution Partner, and the Dealers) are trying to be fair about deliverables, but because of the aforementioned details it is, of course, very hard to make everyone happy.

I hope this helps. Hopefully a few more weeks and this problem will largely be overcome.

Best,
Dan May
Blackmagic Design"

Bottom line sounds like they are trying to do this as fair as possible, but if a B&H had a huge preorder in anticipation of customer orders then that could be why they are getting so many cameras and are able to full fill Dec orders while I'm still waiting for my April order. On the up side, my retailer said they have now shipped 3 cameras! So now I've moved up in line from being in the top ten to being in the top 7!"
]
Ordered From: B&H
Order Date: 09/16/2012
Delivery: Not yet....
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Christine Peterson

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Re: Camera Distribution Details

PostThu Feb 14, 2013 8:29 pm

I split this into a new topic from the Shipping thread, because I thought it might be easier to find. This is a thorough explanation of the shipping situation at the moment from Dan May, the President of Blackmagic Design USA.
Christine Peterson

(Previously Community Relations Manager for Blackmagic Design)
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Thomas Schumacher

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Re: Camera Distribution Details

PostThu Feb 21, 2013 11:23 am

Yes, Christine,

that is a good explanation.

Still, the question remaining unanswered is: is BMD capable of fulfilling all preorders at a rate that people don't have to wait until 2014 or did they reach their limit of production capacity because they didn't expect such an overwhelming amount of preorders?

But if it's the latter I wonder how someone intends to make money with a "cheap" priced product like the BMC if not via massive numbers of sales.

I know I won't get an answer here, but this is to show that some people are still concerned and ready to jump ship as soon as there's something equivalent - on my side even for a higher price tag, if that means buying and being delivered an quantitatively sufficiently available product. [don't know if English needs so many adverbs here ;) ]

And I feel sorry for you having to do this job here right now. Hope you got your BMC already. :mrgreen:
https://www.gernemehrfilm.de/
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Tom

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Re: Camera Distribution Details

PostThu Feb 21, 2013 1:24 pm

What I find concerning, is that production has apparently increased every week since January - CVP were getting 2 a week in early Jan, now we are in late feb and they are still getting just 2 a week.

I know it's not going to happen, but It would be nice if the size of each region was taken into account with the allocation of units between each distribution office.

Based on my calculations, my april 25th 2012 order will be fulfilled in the first week of May 2013. This estimation makes me a very sad panda.

If only I could just go into stasis until it arrived.....
Tom Majerski
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Noel Sterrett

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Re: Camera Distribution Details

PostThu Feb 21, 2013 3:20 pm

Let's say Dealer A placed an order for 1000 cameras on April 20th...

... but if a B&H had a huge preorder in anticipation of customer orders then that could be why they are getting so many cameras...


I placed an order with B&H at NAB on that date, which presumably effected their preorders.

I could have had a camera months ago, but on the advise of Blackmagic that orders could be switched without penalty, I modified my EF order for the MFT.

Cameras are shipping from B&H to those whose orders were placed many months after mine.

Unless there are flange issues with the MFT which need resolution, I think it is past time to start shipping a few so that lenses and other MFT specific accessories can be evaluated with the camera.

NAB 2013 is just over a month away!

Cheers.
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Tom

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Re: Camera Distribution Details

PostThu Feb 21, 2013 4:21 pm

Noel Sterrett wrote:I could have had a camera months ago, but on the advise of Blackmagic that orders could be switched without penalty, I modified my EF order for the MFT.



Cheers.



So many people keep saying this, but none have been able to provide any evidence that BMD actually ever said this.

I suspect they did not. I know John Brawley mentioned something on those lines (as well as specifying that it is dealer dependant) - but never anything from BMD.

Also, as many others have said - this "penalty" would likely refer to the price.
Tom Majerski
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Motion Graphics - Colour Grading - VFX
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Noel Sterrett

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Re: Camera Distribution Details

PostThu Feb 21, 2013 4:34 pm

Tom wrote:Also, as many others have said - this "penalty" would likely refer to the price.


Not so. Discussed at IBC.

Cheers.
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Tom

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Re: Camera Distribution Details

PostThu Feb 21, 2013 4:38 pm

Noel Sterrett wrote:
Tom wrote:Also, as many others have said - this "penalty" would likely refer to the price.


Not so. Discussed at IBC.

Cheers.



Care to link to where this was discussed? Clearly it must be online somewhere for so many people to have been told by BMD that there would be no penalty.
Tom Majerski
Colourist at Tracks and Layers
http://www.Tracksandlayers.com
Motion Graphics - Colour Grading - VFX

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