Canon USA Addresses the Gray Market
- Thread starter Canon Rumors
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I think EVERYBODY SHOULD BUY GREY MARKET.
Here in Brazil, 99% of photographers use camera bodies and lenses from grey market. From Paraguay or from some U.S. authorized dealer. I know US authorized dealers arent grey market, but it something goes wrong, there's absolutely no way to get the warranty to work. Mail a DSLR to US means it also will come back via mail, and DSLRs and other electronics coming from US via mail, equals instant 60% taxes on the product.
You probably is wondering why we dont just buy on local stores.
When I bought a T2i, 5 years ago, I paid 900 dollars on the body in Paraguay. About 1050 dollars was spent to build up my kit with 18-55 lens.
At that time, local stores and online stores was selling the kit for about 2700 dollars here. This is the life a Brazilian Photographer lives. We are pushed to ilegal ways to acquire our most expensive equipment. Huge taxes and greedy profits impedes us from buying our stuff comfortably like the rest of the world.
Why am I saying all this? My point is:grey market isnt that painful. A whole 200 million people country buy from grey market and we have no problem with it. Even from grey market we pay More than a new yorker does on any photography equipment. If something breaks, just fix it. You wont die because of spending some bucks to fix your professional gear. Its very rare, here in Brazil, hear some body or lens problem from Canon or Nikon, so we dont even miss a warranty service because we dont need it most of the time. I used my T2i for 5 years without any problem. I sold my T2i to acquire my 6D and decided to make the cheapest and most dangerous way: Paraguay trip in a bus filled with other almost 40 people with the same intention of buy and save money as much as they could, since Paraguay have much lower prices than Brazil, because of our huge taxes and greedy prices.
I paid about 2300 dollars on the 6D kit with 24-105. Not that fancy kit B&H offers. It had basically whats inside de kit box. No SD card, no mini bag, no anything else US stores can offer. In the 2300 are included the trip and the GRAFT. Yes.. since this kind of shopping trip is ilegal, police officers often ask buses to pull over, and since we are in Brazil, graft is involved everywhere. We were stopped twice and let them have about 1000 dollars. We didnt offer it. They Asked. They (police officers) required it to let the bus go, or we would lose everything or pay 60% of taxes in the nearest office post. So the passengers had to sum a thousand dollars to save their products by the end of the trip.
So please, stop complaining of a warranty to ensure a fix that probably wont even be needed. All, and by all I mean ALL, all brazilian professional photographers acquire their most expensive stuff on grey market or on vacation travels in foreign lands they wont spend at least 1000 dollars to come back just to fix a camera where the warranty resides.
As a brazilian, I can say this warranty restrictions are nothing less than a lobbyist maneuver to ensure their profit. We are surrounded by it all the time here. The 2700 dollar T2i Kit country. We are already used to ignore at least the small risks some companies implies to the rest of the world to convince people they can't live without a warranty.
Here in Brazil, 99% of photographers use camera bodies and lenses from grey market. From Paraguay or from some U.S. authorized dealer. I know US authorized dealers arent grey market, but it something goes wrong, there's absolutely no way to get the warranty to work. Mail a DSLR to US means it also will come back via mail, and DSLRs and other electronics coming from US via mail, equals instant 60% taxes on the product.
You probably is wondering why we dont just buy on local stores.
When I bought a T2i, 5 years ago, I paid 900 dollars on the body in Paraguay. About 1050 dollars was spent to build up my kit with 18-55 lens.
At that time, local stores and online stores was selling the kit for about 2700 dollars here. This is the life a Brazilian Photographer lives. We are pushed to ilegal ways to acquire our most expensive equipment. Huge taxes and greedy profits impedes us from buying our stuff comfortably like the rest of the world.
Why am I saying all this? My point is:grey market isnt that painful. A whole 200 million people country buy from grey market and we have no problem with it. Even from grey market we pay More than a new yorker does on any photography equipment. If something breaks, just fix it. You wont die because of spending some bucks to fix your professional gear. Its very rare, here in Brazil, hear some body or lens problem from Canon or Nikon, so we dont even miss a warranty service because we dont need it most of the time. I used my T2i for 5 years without any problem. I sold my T2i to acquire my 6D and decided to make the cheapest and most dangerous way: Paraguay trip in a bus filled with other almost 40 people with the same intention of buy and save money as much as they could, since Paraguay have much lower prices than Brazil, because of our huge taxes and greedy prices.
I paid about 2300 dollars on the 6D kit with 24-105. Not that fancy kit B&H offers. It had basically whats inside de kit box. No SD card, no mini bag, no anything else US stores can offer. In the 2300 are included the trip and the GRAFT. Yes.. since this kind of shopping trip is ilegal, police officers often ask buses to pull over, and since we are in Brazil, graft is involved everywhere. We were stopped twice and let them have about 1000 dollars. We didnt offer it. They Asked. They (police officers) required it to let the bus go, or we would lose everything or pay 60% of taxes in the nearest office post. So the passengers had to sum a thousand dollars to save their products by the end of the trip.
So please, stop complaining of a warranty to ensure a fix that probably wont even be needed. All, and by all I mean ALL, all brazilian professional photographers acquire their most expensive stuff on grey market or on vacation travels in foreign lands they wont spend at least 1000 dollars to come back just to fix a camera where the warranty resides.
As a brazilian, I can say this warranty restrictions are nothing less than a lobbyist maneuver to ensure their profit. We are surrounded by it all the time here. The 2700 dollar T2i Kit country. We are already used to ignore at least the small risks some companies implies to the rest of the world to convince people they can't live without a warranty.
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But that "local company" business structure was not the decission of the customer but of Canon.weixing said:
So it's the opinion of those complaining here that Canon has to deal with that and not that the customer has to suffer from this.
An original Canon product is an original everywhere in the world.
And the world no longer is "local", it's "global".
edit: And I work at a global corporation and I know that in-company cross compensation is possible and done.
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Canon 1DX in London £4999
Canon 1DX on Amazon Japan £3000
Pentax 645Z in London £7000
Pentax 645Z Amazon Japan £4000
I'm buying grey market. Who's with me?
Canon 1DX on Amazon Japan £3000
Pentax 645Z in London £7000
Pentax 645Z Amazon Japan £4000
I'm buying grey market. Who's with me?
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Hi,Maximilian said:
But Canon didn't force customer to buy their products. Every company had their own terms and condition and if you don't agree to them, don't buy their products... the choice is yours. If you want to buy gray product, go ahead, but just don't expect them to honor the warranty... the choice is still yours.
Anyway, ideally, it's "global", but not everyone use the same currency, not everyone speak the same language, not everywhere had the same law, not everywhere had the same culture and you still need a passport when travel to other country, so it's still "local" in the real world.
By the way, the funniest warranty I every read is from pelican case warranty: "This guarantee does not cover shark bite, bear attack, or children under 5." Children under 5 is as destructive as shark bite and bear attack... ha ha ha ;D
Have a nice day.
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weixing said:
I don't think anyone can make a product that can withstand the hazards of a 5 year old.
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Every international manufacturer sets different pricing structures for different areas of the world. This is based on common sense and on the maximum amount of money you can squeeze out of each sale. Talking about Europe, for example, until a few months ago, Poland was some kind of price heaven. The country had been labeled by some marketing genius as "developing country" and the assumption was made that consumers there had less money to spend on cameras and lenses (which was somewhat true). Polish distributors started to enjoy prices which were a good 20% lower, when compared to the prices of other "already developed" european countries. The result was, especially for Nikon, that a flood of professional cameras with polish manuals started to invade nearby countries like Germany, Austria, Italy etc. After 2 years or so and probably several thousands of units sold Canikon decided that enough was enough and moved to a unified european pricelist (and to some other marketing crap such as the "selective distribution" more on this later if somebody is interested)
This just to say that A) distribution and consumer prices are decided at a corporate level, B) these prices are completely arbitrary (how much can we milk out of Europe or USA or Australia? in which way we can maximize our profits?), C) every sale opportunity (including gray market operations) is managed at the same corporate level (some gray market manager in Japan is probably reading this, say hello to him) and D) they always win even if some PR manager here and there once in a while sends a press release to CR about the "hazards" of the gray market.
This just to say that A) distribution and consumer prices are decided at a corporate level, B) these prices are completely arbitrary (how much can we milk out of Europe or USA or Australia? in which way we can maximize our profits?), C) every sale opportunity (including gray market operations) is managed at the same corporate level (some gray market manager in Japan is probably reading this, say hello to him) and D) they always win even if some PR manager here and there once in a while sends a press release to CR about the "hazards" of the gray market.
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I don't plan to buy grey market products and until now I didn't do so but I also don't want to have all the shipping hussle and issues when I have to move. And as I stated beforeweixing said:
I know that in-company cross compensation is possible and done.
So it would be a real good and customer friendly act of Canon to treat them as their Customers when they buy at a (locally) authorized dealer and not as someone who's trying th defraud Canon.
But the world DOES get more and more "global" in business (no matter what law, currency, language and culture involved) and the companies (incl. Canon) should start to overthink their behavior enrooted from the last millenium.
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QUOTE: "You know if enough disgruntled customers got together and said they were not buying any of their products for say 6 months unless this differential pricing issue was addressed I bet that would have an effect."
And, that statement flew around for awhile when gas prices in USA sky-rocketed a few years ago. Telling everyone to "don't buy gas on Wednesday" or something like that and we'll teach those greedy fuel companies a lesson. Believe this!! If you could organize a plan that actually did it, you'd be hired by some raggedy politician to make him/her president of he USA. That's an impossible task, to coordinate camera buyers to refuse purchasing a product simply to "let's show Canon how mad we are..."
You'd take years and tons of money, and then have an offshoot of a labor union, sorta ...
And, that statement flew around for awhile when gas prices in USA sky-rocketed a few years ago. Telling everyone to "don't buy gas on Wednesday" or something like that and we'll teach those greedy fuel companies a lesson. Believe this!! If you could organize a plan that actually did it, you'd be hired by some raggedy politician to make him/her president of he USA. That's an impossible task, to coordinate camera buyers to refuse purchasing a product simply to "let's show Canon how mad we are..."
You'd take years and tons of money, and then have an offshoot of a labor union, sorta ...
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lourenco said:
Setting MAP is actually illegal in the UK and EU due to competition law.
Of course manufacturers might do it under the covers - but it would still be illegal.
As it is, I see no evidence that there is a MAP in play in the UK - market forces seem to be at work, and Amazon seem to be the one who routinely establish the lowest price, and are usually the first ones to drop the price from the 'recommended price' that Canon put in their press release at launch once the lens is actually available.
Just check http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/Canon to see how widely prices can vary from retailer to retailer.
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I have worked for Japanese electronics companies for years and I can tell you that this is a difficult issue for them to deal with because it's not black and white for them (it's grey!).
In the 90's I used to participate in the grey market by selling camcorders to a company in Montreal who was dumping them into New York. The US arm of the company used to complain, but there was little they could do when the same dealers were selling back into Canada, which Canadian dealers used to complain about. The New York dealers used to pull tricks like removing the accessories from the cameras and selling them separately in order to show a lower selling cost of the camera itself.
Grey market items from Asia are a bit different though because they aren't usually UL approved. If a non-approved charger burns down your house, it may nullify your insurance so that's not something I would mess with personally. If however you DO get a genuine Canon charger and battery (which can be difficult to tell) and it is UL approved, it is difficult for Canon to say they won't service the item. Notice in the press release that it says "MAY not be eligible", not WILL not be eligible. Warranty service by Canon USA would be billed back to the factory, so it doesn't cost them anything to fix it AND the fact is that if they are genuine Canon products, they come from the same factory with the same name on it. Canon USA is also a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon Inc. who in the end, has to support their products.
If you have a genuine Canon product and you make enough noise, they should honor the warranty regardless of where you bought it.
BUT Beware of non-approved knockoff batteries and chargers. Those will void your warranty and possibly endanger your life. For me, the risk of saving a couple of hundred bucks isn't worth it. If you are talking about lenses and non-electrical accessories, it is less risky. Personally, I'd rather have local support as well as supporting my local dealers. Go negotiate!
In the 90's I used to participate in the grey market by selling camcorders to a company in Montreal who was dumping them into New York. The US arm of the company used to complain, but there was little they could do when the same dealers were selling back into Canada, which Canadian dealers used to complain about. The New York dealers used to pull tricks like removing the accessories from the cameras and selling them separately in order to show a lower selling cost of the camera itself.
Grey market items from Asia are a bit different though because they aren't usually UL approved. If a non-approved charger burns down your house, it may nullify your insurance so that's not something I would mess with personally. If however you DO get a genuine Canon charger and battery (which can be difficult to tell) and it is UL approved, it is difficult for Canon to say they won't service the item. Notice in the press release that it says "MAY not be eligible", not WILL not be eligible. Warranty service by Canon USA would be billed back to the factory, so it doesn't cost them anything to fix it AND the fact is that if they are genuine Canon products, they come from the same factory with the same name on it. Canon USA is also a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon Inc. who in the end, has to support their products.
If you have a genuine Canon product and you make enough noise, they should honor the warranty regardless of where you bought it.
BUT Beware of non-approved knockoff batteries and chargers. Those will void your warranty and possibly endanger your life. For me, the risk of saving a couple of hundred bucks isn't worth it. If you are talking about lenses and non-electrical accessories, it is less risky. Personally, I'd rather have local support as well as supporting my local dealers. Go negotiate!
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cosmopotter said:
None of my Canon lenses has so far required a battery or charger.
So what is the excuse for making them country specific, or not servicing them in different counties - it can only be to deliberately segment the market to optimize profitability.
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lw said:cosmopotter said:
None of my Canon lenses has so far required a battery or charger.
So what is the excuse for making them country specific, or not servicing them in different counties - it can only be to deliberately segment the market to optimize profitability.
Precisely. Of the products I import from Japan to Canada, I only have to get approval (CSA in our case) for the items that plug in to the wall. My cameras don't plug in directly and neither do lenses.
As people said earlier, items are priced for individual markets - what the market will bare. This is a relative number. In the UK they often pay the same in pounds as we do in dollars. This seems unfair, but they also get paid in pounds. I know from personal experience that someone doing my job in the UK makes pretty much the same as I do in Pounds. This is in fact more than 1.5x more than I make, but it is relative to the cost of living. Cars cost more, gas costs more, cameras cost more but relative to income it is actually pretty fair. As the world becomes a smaller place, these differences become more complex.
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AvTvM said:
While that it a ideal view, its not a realistic one, not at least until all countries come up with the same regulations, same taxes, same liability laws, etc. Companies have separate P&L centers because they have to deal with the different laws and tax rates.
In fact, its not one world. Here in the USA, its not even one country, each state has its differing laws and differing taxes. Politics plays a huge part. At least, some laws are common, so that makes it possible to sell the same product in most states, but some products can only be sold in certain states.
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AvTvM said:
ONE company. ONE world. ONE global economy
Really??? Even within the US a company can set up different sales offices to sell to different regions plus a national accounts sales office. Cost, P/L, bonuses are based upon local results.
By your logic, would it be okay for Canon to require you ship warranty products back to Japan (or some other global local) for servicing?
A small bit of the price of every item Canon sells goes to warranty support. If you buy a gray market item, Canon USA (or which ever local country) does not get this support. Cost reassignment will work well - for example a Canon USA tech may make $125 / hr (all in after benefits, ...) while similar position in India may get only $50/hr. If Canon USA were to rebill Canon India, at what rate? Canon India set aside only $50 / hr for the repair but Canon USA needs $125.
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