Although Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) likes to trumpet that it carries a whole selection of non-Dell products -- from digital cameras to GPS devices to projectors -- does it sell a lot of those items? Hard to say really, and it's hard for me to think that customers go to Dell when considering an electronic item purchase. Well, unless they are assembling a PC at Dell's website all all the upsells of these items are presented up front as available to the millions of customers who build and order PCs from Dell's website every quarter.

Does Dell have these items in stock in warehouses all over the U.S.? If a recent order for a digital camera is any indication, that's hard to imagine. I ordered a Canon TX1 Monday of this week from www.dell.com, expecting some kind of status on if the item was in stock before the order was placed. Since I could not find that information, I placed the order. After then determining (again, after the order) that the camera was constrained to Dell -- with an expected ship date at the end of this month -- well, I was a tad miffed.

I turned to Buy.com the same day and ordered the same unit. Buy.com did indicate inventory levels, with an expected ship date of 1-2 days. The unit showed up on Wednesday afternoon. Dell's order page (on an order which I will be canceling), still indicates a status of "In Production," which strikes me as odd since Dell is not "producing" anything -- simply shipping a ready-built, non-Dell product. Now, if Dell's system would have indicated stock levels before the order was placed -- or used better language to describe inventory levels -- that would have been fine. But attaching an order status that is meant for a custom-built PC instead of a non-Dell electronics item (where it has no meaning at all) leaves me feeling that Dell's carrying of other items is not a priority for the company -- or its customer-facing system would be quite a bit more clear. Moral of the story: it's hard to imagine ordering anything but a PC from Dell after such a non-communicative experience here.