Hi fellas,
I'm from accross the "ditch" in NZ, and I ordered my D7i this week from a shop in Canada - and they were even cheaper than the prices that have been mentioned in this thread!
I did a lot of searching around the Net for a shop in the USA that would ship internationally and have a good price. I almost bought one from a shop in New York called "Family Photo & Video" at a much higher price (US$999), before I spotted this Canadian shop that had a listing on eBay with a Buy Now price for the D7i of only US$869 - too good to be true! But it WAS true.
The shop is called Carman's Foto Source and their website is at
http://www.carmans.com although I'm not sure if their website lists the D7i yet - but they certainly do have them in stock, as shown on their eBay listings at
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1360375669 for example. They are a brick-and-mortar outfit (as oppsed to an internet-only website), with multiple stores across Ontario, and they've been around since 1972. They happily ship internationally, and the D7i I bought comes with a Minolta Canada warranty which will be honoured by Minolta in ANY country (eg. if the camera goes bust here in NZ, I'll just take it into my local Minolta dealer here and it will be covered by the warranty still).
When I saw the eBay auction I rang them (their phone number is listed on the auction page) and spoke to a guy named Rob, who was very friendly and helpful - in fact it was a Sunday morning there, and he had his shop phone number diverted to his home and he spent about 20 minutes on the phone with me from his home! (How's that for service?!) Most shops would be closed on a Sunday. He was polite, patient and answered all my questions in detail. When I rang a couple of shops in New York last week, the guys I spoke to were usually a bit blunt and made you feel like they were in a hurry to get off the phone, like they had better things to do than talk to you (and that's during regular weekday hours). So I was very impressed that Rob was willing to take calls even on a weekend.
As I said before, the camera itself only cost me US$869, and he shipped it out via UPS (with insurance and a tracking number). The shipping cost only US$65 - VERY cheap! What's more, it will only take 3-4 days to get from Canada to NZ - it's due in tomorrow!
I also bought a Mack 5 year extended warranty from him (they work in other countries too) - only US$90 for that, in comparison to the $199 I was quoted by Family Photo & Video. Unbelieveable!
Here's what I'm paying all up, compared with the prices quoted me by Family Photo & Video (which are similar to many other shops in the USA) - the first price is Carman's, the second is Family P&V:
DiMAGE 7i: $869 $999
Mack 5 year warranty: $90 $200
Lens pen/cleaning kit: $12 $15
Shipping via UPS: $65 $99
TOTAL: US$1037 (
NZ$2116) US$1313 ( NZ$2679)
So that's a saving of about NZ$560 - that's a lot of dosh!
Also he was able to help me in getting it shipped out asap, as I told him I was in a bit of a hurry to receive it (I'm going away for the weekend and wanted to have the camera to take with me). I rang him on his Sunday and he had it shipped out on his Monday. He had no problem accepting an international Visa card either (some other shops won't do that). He even rang me after I'd emailed him my details, to tell me that he'd received them and everything was on track.
Of course I can't tell you anything about the camera yet, coz I don't get it until tomorrow or Friday, but I'm very confident that I'll have no problem with it. When it comes to making such a big purchase online (from a shop I can't physically visit to check out), I'm very careful to make sure that the place I'm buying from is safe, reliable, trustworthy etc - not some guy trying to pawn cheap, dodgy cameras from some dubious-looking website or something! That's why I rang them first and checked out their website first, rather than just buying the camera from their eBay auction. All in all I'm a very happy customer so far!
I'm certainly not affiliated with them in any way, but I do think that any business that offers excellent customer service and great prices should be rewarded - we're often very quick to complain about poor service and not always quick enough to praise the companies that give us a great deal!
Well that's a bit more than 2 cents worth, but I hope it's helpful to someone. I would certainly recommend this shop to anyone down in NZ or Aussie (or anywhere else for that matter) who is looking to buy a camera for a good price. It's definitely much cheaper to buy this soft of thing from other countries than from our own countries, due to the large mark-up that our local stores have to put on the items when they import them here. Which is what makes the "global community" so wonderful!
(I've already bought Maha PowerEx 1800 batteries online, and will do the same with a new CompactFlash card - it's much cheaper to import them than buy them locally).
Cheers,
Jeremy
After lots of looking, I think I'm ready to jump into a 7i
Minolta Australia are giving me a cold shoulder finding out when
the 7i is released here, and the local camera stores have no idea.
Can anyone recommend a good place online to buy, as someone from
Australia? ie. international warranty (if Minolta Australia
listens to that!?), return policy (stuck pixels, defective parts,
etc), good price
Thanks - Robert
