It’s always amusing to watch marketing/sales fads and how they progress. Or not. Some seem to never die.
What am I talking about? Well, Canon over the weekend was selling the EOS 7D Mark II DSLR body bundled with the Canon Pixma Pro-100 printer (and 50 sheets of paper). The camera+printer with instant rebate aspect was a repeat of former Canon marketing promotions here in the US. But the part that caught my attention was the additional US$350 mail-in rebate. Together, instant savings, the bundle, and the mail-in rebate brought the price to US$1200, which was a darned good price for a highly competent crop-sensor DSLR and a very good printer.
Unfortunately, some of the rebate on this deal has now expired, and instead of US$1200, the price is now US$1520 (very slightly above the body-only price), still a pretty reasonable price, but not a great one.
But mail-in rebates? Oh I hoped we were done with those.
Unfortunately, I suspect we’re going to see more of them, not less. Why? Because so many of you fail to actually file for the rebate (or do so incorrectly, allowing the rebate to be denied). Plus such rebates push actual outflow of dollars by a significant period of time, helping cashflow. Indeed, the mail-in rebate here is provided back to you with a pre-loaded American Express card, not a check. This tends to delay the actual cash outlay some more.
Here’s the message: the Japanese want to sell more product. They need to sell more product. Price is one way they can do that, but they also want to minimize the cash loss to them in doing so (especially given how the yen/dollar relationship is tracking these days). Voila! Offer a US$350 mail-in rebate. When all is said and done, that probably will turn out to be about a US$200 rebate cost to Canon, on average, maybe even less. And US$1200 looks like a lower price than US$1350 ;~).
This deal ends 11/14
My dealer reminds me that Canon has a series of mail-in US$25 to US$100 rebates if you buy two or more Canon lenses (not kit lenses with camera) simultaneously, and that’s active until the end of the year (December 31st). You must buy the two (or more) lenses on the same invoice to get the rebates. Someone switching systems to Canon and buying a bunch of lenses could get a little extra incentive with this deal. These rebates apply to about 60 Canon lenses.
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