Jeff Donald Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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mmurph wrote:
He wants to be sure it is a legitimate import.
Not grey market, refurbished, used and repackaged, or somehow fraudulent. Certainly a legitimate question with all of the different scams out there! You never know.
For example, Nikon regulates which serial number ranges can be sold in certain countries, because the pricing to wholesalers/distributers is different by market.
(A really screwed up practice by Nikon. It makes it impossible for them to move excess inventory between regions to balance sales, for example. So they can have excess stock in the US for the V3, and a shortage in Japan... Plus you can't control global arbitrage on prices.)
There used to be a huge business in re-tagging Nikon cameras with fake serial number stickers. The cameras were then imported and sold as "legitimate" bodies with a local warranty.
That has also happened with Fuji recently, where the serial number on the body doesn't match the one in the JPEG. They are sold as US bodies, but are not eligible for US warranty. (For X100.)...Show more →
In almost all counties (maybe all?) Nikon sells to companies (wholly owned subsidiaries) that are owned by Nikon Japan. Basically this is taking money out of the left pocket and putting it into the right pocket. Yes , they know the product imported into each market.
The pricing is different because the marketing cost and warranty repair costs differ for each market. These cost need to be recovered and why should a market that has lower costs subsidize a market with higher expenses. Nikon has higher cost in the NA market than any other market. Why?
Nikon has to compete to some degree with competitors and thus pay for print, electronic and other marketing costs. How much did all the TV spots with Ashton Kutcher cost? If Nikon USA paid for out of market warranty costs, this would skew the costs that Nikon USA pays. If they did pay for all gray market repairs, it would lower cost in other markets, and raise the cost in NA. Thusly the grey market cameras would get cheaper and the NA market would go even higher.
All major camera "distributors" are required signed dealer agreements if they want to be listed as authorized and products sold eligible for rebates. . The dealer agreements cover how products can be returned. Camera manufacturers/distributors allow the return of unsold products, via stock balancing, with few if any restrictions. Defective product stock (retailer opens box and camera is defective) is replaced. Product returned because it doesn't meet customer expectation is generally treated differently. Depending on the retailer and other agreements, number of returns etc. The retailer might get a replacement or might be forced to resell as refurbished or new.
Canon can afford to service grey market items for several reasons, but the largest is the fact that Canon is a much larger, global company and can spread out the costs. The other major factor is a different approach to customer service. In my experience Canon is more concerned about the customer experience (at least in the US market) an wants customers to have the "best" customer experience, if possible.
I've dealt with both companies over 5 decades ('70's, '80's, '90's, 2000's and 2010's). The opinions above are based on personal experience with customer services issues (from a retail stand point) with several large camera retailers.
I hope this helps some FM members.
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