"Let the buyer beware."
I routinely see and hear people asking about online bundled deals on cameras. My response is typically quite simple... RUN.
To that advice I should probably add "quickly and as far away as you can get." But why?
Before I go too much further I want to make something clear; I have no gripe toward any particular vendor or their attempts at marketing. We live in a capitalistic world. Everyone is competing for the same money so any advantage a company might utilize in order to attract potential buyers is, arguably sadly, fair game in that arena. Additionally I'm writing this from and regarding the US market. Some, but not all, of the knowledge I'm about to arm you with, may not apply in other markets around the world.
So why should someone looking for the best deal avoid these bundles? Well to start with, these bundles are almost always offered with entry level cameras? You'll rarely, if ever, see them with high end, pro-level cameras. That's because they are being marketed to the unknowing. Experienced photographers tend to know what they are buying but beginners generally don't and are easily lured into purchasing bundles that seem like great deals. After all, who doesn't want to get more for their money?
Sadly this is where things get murky.
All the major camera manufacturer have price protection policies meaning legit US dealers are required to buy and sell serial numbered products like cameras and lenses for the same price. And the profit margin is considerably lower than most people would believe, generally in single digits. This is likely applicable in other markets as well but I am not educated enough to speak to that issue. So if every dealer is buying and selling for the same price, how does a dealer make more money by selling more stuff? Especially if they aren't making very much money selling the camera in the first place. Good question right?
Welcome to the marketing game!
There are multiple answers to this question. I'll provide at least a few of them. Ultimately the end game here is to increase total profit dollars. By taking a tiny bit of their profit and returning it to the customer in the form of a few extra products, a dealer can potentially increase sales. Even at lower profit, more sales add up to an increased bottom line. Many dealers will go all-in on this strategy. But just how deeply are these marketers willing to dip into their profit dollars in order to sell more product? While that answer varies, of course, the general answer is can be summed up easily - given that thin profit margin to begin with, not very deeply!
If one dealer seems to be "giving" you something another isn't, you can bet whatever they are including isn't particularly valuable. Sometimes its a nothing more numbers game. The more pieces in the bundle, the more attractive the deal will likely appear. I chuckle when I look at some of these bundles. One of my favorites is the one below that is including cotton swabs to increase the product count. Seriously?
Another great "trick" some of these bundles use is to include things which are already included but count them as part of the overall product count. Every new camera is sold with a battery, charger, strap, lens caps, etc. When they are shown and/or listed as part of the bundle, you're not getting anything extra. Some dealers go so far as to remove the rubber eyecup from the back of the camera and then include it for you. Its akin to a car dealer including standard factory visors in their package deal. Don't be fooled by these tricks.
On that note, while not all dealers that market bundles are true swindlers, some certainly can be. It is not at all uncommon for manufacturer supplied items like eyecups, batteries, chargers, lens hoods, etc to be removed and replaced with inexpensive replacements. The dealers can then sell the name brand products, still new, as open box or what is often called white box, products making additional money. You lose in the deal because the price of the camera from the factory includes those items and you're getting cheap replacements.
The dealer supplied extras are junk or of extremely little value. Almost every bundle I've ever seen includes filters, supplemental lenses, a flash and tripod. They'll also include cleaning clothes and other trinkets the dealer can literally add for pennies. To demonstrate what I'm saying, lets look at a few of these items.
The filters are my personal favorite. Why? Do I think filters are useless? No, actually I don't. I am fond of filters, especially high quality filters that actually serve a purpose. However, most of the bundled filters are pure junk. Some aren't even made of glass. Others simply serve no purpose. See the purple filter in the bundle below? If the bundle you're looking at includes a purple (FLD) filter, that's your sign. FLD filters are essentially unneeded for digital photography. FLD filters are designed to eliminate the green cast of fluorescent lighting when shooting daylight balanced film. Yes, I said film. Digital cameras have electronic white balance corrections for various types of fluorescent lighting so these filters haven't been needed for twenty years of so. We won't even discuss the fact that fluorescent lights have all but been replaced with daylight balanced LEDs. I find it hard to believe than any company is still manufacturing these things!
The supplemental wide angle and telephoto lenses these bundles come with aren't designed to mount or interface with any particular camera. Instead, the are designed to screw into the filter thread at the front of the camera's normal lenses. The optics of these supplemental lenses are always terrible and I can't tell you how many of these I've seen that didn't even have the correct threads for the cameras they were bundled with.
Tripods serve just one purpose; to solidly support a camera, ideally at eye level for most photography. That's it. Thats all they do. They really don't change, so purchasing a good tripod that will last decades is investing your money wisely, especially considering your expensive camera will be attached to it. The bundled tripods are usually short, flimsy and made of plastic or very thin aluminum that breaks quickly and does the job poorly until that point. Remember every ounce of weight saved is more profit remaining in the dealer's pockets when they are paying the shipping charges. And those shipping charges have soared over the last couple years. These bundled items are designed to attract, not necessarily to function. Read that sentence again.
I've possibly saved that best of the junk for last. The flash that is included with most of these bundles is not a dedicated flash designed for the camera. They are generally marketed as slave flashes, a term most newbies aren't familiar with. These that don't actually interface with or tie directly to the electronics of the camera. A beginner that doesn't know how to use flash doesn't stand a chance with one of these things. And, like all the other "goodies," they are cheaply made junk.
Possibly of greater concern is whether the products you are purchasing are legitimate US goods or if they are gray market cameras. Gray market products are products destined for markets other than the US and can be purchased by the dealers less expensively. The biggest drawback to purchasing gray market goods is the lack of US warranty and support. When you purchase a gray market item, essentially you're purchasing it as is. You're on your own afterward. Below is link to an article about some folks that learned the hard way. They are, of course, not alone. Sadly too many people find themselves in this same predicament. This just happens to be an article about one example.
Fortunately for Canon users armed with a bit of knowledge, identifying non US camera is actually quite easy. Canon names their North America cameras differently. A quick web search will tell you that the 850D is actually sold as the T8i in the US for example. So if the bundle is an 850D and not a T8i, you're buying gray market.
Other manufacturers such as Nikon don't do this. So how might you know. Well, my first advice is to simply avoid these bundles and buy from a reputable dealer, preferably local. As local camera dealer become more and more rare, not everyone has this luxury so there are some red flag words or phrases to look for. Look over the wording carefully for things such as these listed below.
No Warranty, No US Warranty, International Model, Import Model, Dealer Supplied Warranty, USA Seller Warranty, USA Coverage by Seller, etc.
Here's an example... easy enough to overlook if you don't know any better.
Hopefully by this point, you understand why I suggest you avoid bundles entirely. Just keep in mind, some of these rather shady techniques are used for stand alone products and not just bundles. I recently had a customer that told me she'd, unknowingly ordered a gray market product online. In this particular case, however, the dealer contacted her to inform her that since she's in the US, she shouldn't purchase that product. That was nice right? Sure. Maybe. The online seller then offered to sell her the legit US product, at a higher price of course. She could either accept the higher priced product or they would happily refund her money - minus a 15% restocking fee. The great deal turned out to be no deal at all. She was simply lured into purchasing the product from that dealer because they already had her money.
Let the buyer beware!
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