TindrumFire Photography

Grey market camera equipment

// March 3rd, 2009 // Photography

This is an update of a post I wrote quite a while ago on a blog I’ve since retired; I’ve carried it across because judging by my incoming search trends, it’s still quite a popular topic.  In the main, it’s still applicable, although a few things have changed with time.  I’ve updated it to reflect this.

In your search for a DSLR, you might have heard something about “Grey market cameras”, often spoken about in both positive and negative connotations.  You’re probably asking yourself, “What are these strangely named beasts?” 

Basically, the major camera manufacturers lock up each region around the world through exclusive wholesaler arrangements.  So, if you want to buy a Canon or Nikon camera, you have to go to the (normally) single wholesaler who’s authorised to purchase from Canon or Nikon.  Obviously, in these days of global trade and the Internet, their closest competitor is only a single click away.  If you don’t like the prices they’re charging, you’re free to go to a vendor in the US, the UK, or wherever else.  Great for you, not so great for the retailer.  And, in turn, not always so great for the manufacturer’s ability to find retail outlets and offer a significant enough margin to make carrying their goods worthwhile.

To stop you from doing this, most local service arms will refuse to service or honour the warranty of models purchased overseas.  It doesn’t matter if you bought a $2,000 camera in Singapore from an authorised vendor – their default position will be that because you bought it overseas, your warranty isn’t valid.  Nice, isn’t it?

These imported models are called “grey market” cameras.  They’ve been imported legally and are technically exactly the same as the models being sold domestically, but they aren’t recognised by the distributor.  The primary advantage this gives them is that they can set prices in each region to be whatever they want.  Canon and Nikon, for example, tend to charge approximately 50% more in Australia than in the US or most of Asia.  On the other hand, Pentax is really cheap in Australia, but expensive in Europe.  They’ll normally tell where the camera was purchased via the serial number of the bottom of the camera – Nikon varies the first number depending on which market the camera was intended to be sold in.  Most retailers will provide domestic support of a foreign model as long as you purchased it in person overseas from an authorised vendor, but Canon’s a bit prickly about this one, apparently.

They argue that it ensures consistency of product, better consumer satisfaction, and so on, but that’s just marketing-speak.  It’s basically a form of price discrimination.

So why go grey market?  It used to be extremely cheaper (hundreds of dollars in many cases), but this price differential has decreased somewhat with the collapse of the Australian dollar.  A recent local camera I bought was only about 3% more expensive than its grey market counterpart.

Why not?  You normally lose local warranty support and may have difficulties getting your camera serviced later on.  Bear in mind though that this isn’t necessarily the end of the world – most cameras only come with a one year warranty anyway, and there are other service centres that really don’t care where you bought the camera in the first place.  Most reputable local retailers will also provide the warranty coverage for you (which they have to do by law), so if your camera breaks, they’ll take care of shipping it back and getting it fixed in the country or origin.

So, in a nutshell, the advantages of going grey market:

• Generally significantly cheaper, but this is heavily dependent on the current exchange rate.

The disadvantages:

• If your retailer goes bust, you’re out of luck during the warranty period unless you’re willing to ship it back at your cost.
• You may have difficulties getting it serviced by the manufacturer after the warranty period.  Then again, you may not – it’s luck of the draw.  On the other hand, you can always get it serviced by someone other than the manufacturer – most people just want your money and don’t really care where you bought it.

The two companies most people know of in Australia that deal with grey market cameras used to be PhotoBuff and D-D-Photographics.  It’s up to you whether or not you want to take the risk, and I make no comment about the long-term reliability of either company.  However, I believe PhotoBuff’s been around for about three years, and D-D-Photographics about five.  Having said that, PhotoBuff’s been out of action for quite a while now and it’s rather unclear as to when, if ever, they’ll reappear, so with much in life, nothing’s really guaranteed. 

What would I do?  Personally, I take into account the potential loss should the camera die, the length of the warranty, and the price differential.  At the moment, I’ll happily buy local models simply because a 3% price difference isn’t worth the headache to me if the good dies during the warranty period.  On the other hand, a year ago I wouldn’t have gone past the grey market models, largely because the price difference was so significant (upwards of 30% in some cases), it was worth taking the risk.

Caveat emptor.