Yes--this is a promotion, and many people are speculating that e-Bay is underwriting this promotion, the SECOND ONE that Beach has done on this camera, as a way to get some affordable and world-wide "buzz", for LESS than the cost of advertising!!! A couple weeks ago,
Adorama sold over 800 Canon 5D-III cameras at $2,799 or $2,750 in a similar e-Bay promotion; gross sales off of
eBay were right around $2.4 million US dollars in around two days' time--and the WORLD-WIDE publicity for both
Adorama and for e-Bay was HUGE; if the retailers and e-Bay SPLIT the discount, they are still gaining positively HUGE world-wide internet "buzz"...
The thinking is that these promotions, which are NOT available anywhere EXCEPT through these two vendors's
e-Bay storefronts (not in-store, and not on the vendor's "regular" web sites!!!), promote e-Bay as a place to look for brand-new, name-brand camera gear...kinda' like,cough,cough, Amazon.com...
See how that works??? TPF is the world's biggest photo forum, I believe. Neither
Adorama, not Beach, nor e-Bay could actually BUY this kind of buzz through advertising...the value, compared against a potential advertising buy, is HUGE for the vendors, and for e-Bay.