Grey market products definition and arguments for/against buying them

isabelle martin · Mar 15, 2003

The consensus in most of the forums seems to be that grey market simply means products produced for another market/country. But in other industries (fashion, luxury goods, etc.), grey market means cheap imitation. I've never really understood which held true for photographic materials...

Are grey market d100s made by Nikon? Or are they cheap imitations PASSING for Nikon?

Aside from the warranty issue, why NOT buy grey market products? So many digital products have such short (1-year) warranties that the price difference may well be worth taking the gamble that the camera won't break (if of course they are made by Nikon with the same quality materials, etc).

Also, theoretically your grey market products will be covered SOMEWHERE, no? Couldn't you just send the camera to the country where the warranty is valid? I once had to send an American-purchased camera back to NY when I was staying in Europe for an extended period of time.

isabelle martin · Mar 15, 2003

Is the sale of grey market products illegal?

RonA · Mar 15, 2003

Gray mkt Nikon is imported outside the normal distribution system and is not a 'US' model althought it is the same except for some cosmetic things.

Nikon will not warrantee a gray mkt camera. Some vendors openly tell you it is an 'import' and offer some other warranty than Nikon. Most will not tell you and you find out when receiving the camera with a photocopy manual and no US Nikon warranty (they will advertise US warranty) but it's not Nikon.

There are some D100 that are 'hot', stolden in Europe.
Search on 'gray market' for more info.

RonA
CP995, TC-E2, WC-24, WC-63, B-300
Epson 785EPX, Epson 2200
Meade ETX-90RA

Philip119299 · Mar 15, 2003

Martin2004 said:
The consensus in most of the forums seems to be that grey market
simply means products produced for another market/country. But in
other industries (fashion, luxury goods, etc.), grey market means
cheap imitation. I've never really understood which held true for
photographic materials...

Are grey market d100s made by Nikon? Or are they cheap imitations
PASSING for Nikon?

Aside from the warranty issue, why NOT buy grey market products? So
many digital products have such short (1-year) warranties that the
price difference may well be worth taking the gamble that the
camera won't break (if of course they are made by Nikon with the
same quality materials, etc).

Also, theoretically your grey market products will be covered
SOMEWHERE, no? Couldn't you just send the camera to the country
where the warranty is valid? I once had to send an
American-purchased camera back to NY when I was staying in Europe
for an extended period of time.

Go to http://www.bhphotovideo.com

They have a good definition of what is grey market

Philip

Ken. · Mar 15, 2003

From what I have read here it goes a little deeper than the 1 year warranty period. Some state that Nikon will not touch a gray camera even for pay. How is that for a deterent.

Martin2004 said:
Aside from the warranty issue, why NOT buy grey market products? So
many digital products have such short (1-year) warranties that the
price difference may well be worth taking the gamble that the
camera won't break (if of course they are made by Nikon with the
same quality materials, etc).

--
http://www.pbase.com/ken_5

Philip119299 · Mar 23, 2003

Ken. said:
Martin2004 said:

Aside from the warranty issue, why NOT buy grey market products? So
many digital products have such short (1-year) warranties that the
price difference may well be worth taking the gamble that the
camera won't break (if of course they are made by Nikon with the
same quality materials, etc).

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/ken_5

Nikon is not the only people that know how to repair Nikon products.

I have in the past had my Nikon EM repaired by a non Nikon entity and was completely satisfied.

Philip

Ed Nazarko · Mar 23, 2003

Ken is right. I've had legitimate, non-grey market gear from the US that needed repair after I moved to Singapore. Nikon refused to touch it, declaring it grey market. I had exactly the reverse happen with gear I bought in Singapore while living there, after I moved back to the US. To Nkon, grey market means that the local distributor didn't get the profit from the sale to support the service facility. They are tough and absolute about it. They often build small differences into the gear, cosmetically, to instantly tip the Nkon repair facility - in the 9xx cameras, the color of the hand grip insert was different in different markets.

This is true of many companies. I bought an IBM computer for my kid in Singapore when we lived in Singapore. IBM US refuses to touch it. But other than its model number it is identical to the US model.

Ken. said:
Martin2004 said:

Aside from the warranty issue, why NOT buy grey market products? So
many digital products have such short (1-year) warranties that the
price difference may well be worth taking the gamble that the
camera won't break (if of course they are made by Nikon with the
same quality materials, etc).

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/ken_5

--
Ed

Make pictures, don't take them - it leaves more for others.

http://www.onemountainphoto.com

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Grey market products definition and arguments for/against buying them

isabelle martin

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