Today I want to tell you a couple stories. This is a story about something that has happened to me, and some things that have happened to other people, something that could have happened to you, or might happen to you.
I use Nikon, I love Nikon gear and have been a Nikon person for many years now.
When you get into DSLRs and choosing your gear, you do have to think about it like a life choice, because once you get the gear you want, well it is hard to change. So I have put a lot of money into my equipement, I would hate to think exactly how much, but a lot.
I know that Nikon have this thing called the Nikon Professional Services, or NPS for short. To be a member you have to fill certain criteria, which you can find on the NPS page. I first heard about it last year, and thought, it might be worth joining, I fill the criteria, surely, don’t I? I had two of the camera bodies that were listed, I had lots of lenses, and I run a photography business. I’m in so I thought, though it turned out I had to get another lens, which I did get, though would have got regardless of this. Then they said that one of my lenses was a bit iffy, and maybe I should get a 50mm as well, I did when I bought my D800 just recently.
Now, I have been told that I can’t be accepted into it because I bought a lot of my gear on the grey market. We all know what that is right, well, I didn’t really understand it until just recently. So what is it? Well, in Australia, it is very legal, and nothing wrong with buying stuff from it, the ACCC isn’t trying to shut them down, but it may not be good for you.
The grey market, or web based businesses dealing with it, buy products from overseas, and then sell them to you at lower rates. I think most of us know that if you buy something from overseas you lose the warranty, however many of these businesses then guarantee the warranty. When you buy the products from them you get a little card saying that they give you a 12 month warranty. Warranty has never been an issue for me on things bought here, so I don’t know how good it is.
Here is the kicker, they aren’t authorised dealers, well for Nikon they aren’t. I have heard that Canon will still honour the warranty, but I have only heard that and don’t know how true it is. This is all new to me, how about you? I hope this doesn’t mean that I am 
really stupid, but it never occurred to me that I could be doing something that was silly by buying on the grey market.
Another thing to be aware of, is that buying on the grey market doesn’t guarantee the original product. I purchased a Nikon remote shutter release though a company on Amazon, and after having it for three months, well it stopped working, fell apart. I sent an email to the people I had purchased it through and they said that I could have returned it in 30 days or something like that, but now it was too late, but I said it was faulty where is the warranty? I heard nothing back.
I contacted Nikon and told them that their products were poorly made. I was fairly upset, and they told me that what I had purchased was probably a fake Nikon product. So when I purchased the real one through a Nikon dealer I looked closely at both items and the
guy from Nikon was right. The first one I bought was a fake, though to someone like me it was hard to see the differences. I really had to study it closely to see.
I lost just over $100 for this, but it was enough for me to start realising that I couldn’t afford to lose money like that.
I was also told by someone else at Nikon how he has seen someone with a lens they had purchased on the grey market, and when they compared it with one from Nikon, the one from the grey market weighed considerably less than the real one.
Buyer beware, keeps coming to mind, and how for many us we just don’t know exactly what we are getting.
I do have to tell you a story that one of my students in my classes told me. This is probably the worse story I have heard with buying things on the internet. She and her friend both decided to buy DSLR cameras, they were Canons, not that it makes a difference for this story. Her friend found a place on the internet to buy them, and they purchased them. I believe the place was overseas. Her friends camera arrived and all was good, but my students camera arrived and it was in pieces in the box, it was all smashed. She contacted the online store and they told her to send it back, which she did. They looked at it and proceeded to tell her that she has dropped it and that it was her fault and they were not going to replace it. She was devastated, of course, she was out of pocket several hundred dollars. The only saving grace for her was that she had purchased the camera with paypal and was able to get her money back through them.
The biggest problem she had was that it was purchased overseas, and they are under no obligation to do anything. They can promise you the world, but they don’t have to deliver it, they don’t come under Australian laws. The other issue with what she did is that she would have lost the warranty anyway, and her friend, if she had any trouble with the camera, would not have that warranty either. I guess you have to ask yourself what is that warranty worth?
I have to admit much of this is not something I had thought about a lot. I just thought everything would be good, I am buying the products in Australia, well the camera gear, so I am fine. Whether or not they were authorised Nikon or Canon dealers was not something I had considered. How that impacts on me in the long term was also something I hadn’t considered.
While the grey market is completely legal, there are other implications involved. Can you be really sure you are getting the real product that you have ordered? What about that warranty, will the online store really honour it? How much money are you willing to lose to save a few dollars?
I know for myself, I will only purchase my Nikon Products from authorised Nikon Dealers, it is just isn’t worth the risk for me anymore. The reality these days is that you aren’t paying that much more to get it from an authorised dealer, and for me, that is worth the peace of mind.
Do you have experience with the grey market? Was it positive or negative? Would you keep buying things on the grey market? Please share your opinion.
For those unsure of what is considered the grey market, here is a definition from Wikipedia - A grey market (also spelled gray market), or parallel market,[1] is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer. The most common type of grey market is the sale of imported goods (brought by small import companies or individuals not authorized by the manufacturer) which would otherwise be more expensive in the country they are being imported to.