Purchasing Grey Market Items
You’ve probably heard of the term ‘grey market’ before. Whether they be grey market camera’s, grey market lenses or other accessories. So what exactly are grey market items?Well first, we have to understand the way the likes of Canon and Nikon and all the other manufacturers distribute their products all over the world. See, you’ve got the mother company, Canon, Inc or Nikon Corp in Japan somewhere, then they manufacture and assemble their camera’s and lenses in factories out in Thailand or the Philippines but then you also have your official distributors for these different products in different regions.
So these distributors would be your Nikon USA or Canon Canada, or Fuji Hong Kong or it may be some other company, for example, Gentec Intl is the official distributor for Sigma Lenses and products in Canada. Grey Market products on the other hand - are the products that are imported to your country by someone other than the official distributor.
So for example, it’s entirely possible that a US retailer may choose to purchase units of the Canon 450D XSi DSLR from the Canon distributor in Hong Kong. The reason for this is, the retailer may get them cheaper from a distributor in another region compared to the official distributor in the US.
Now, it is important to note that not only is this legal in most countries, but these products - camera’s, lenses, flash guns etc.. are the exact same units you would get had they been purchased from the official country/region distributor. In fact, they most likely came off of the same production line.
But, the important difference though is that since these are not officially imported units by the official distributor, they would not qualify for the official warranty being offered by these distributors. So if you purchased a grey market digital camera that was imported from Hong Kong, then you won’t be able to send it to Canon USA or Nikon USA if you need warranty work done! You have to send it all the way back to Hong Kong.
Now most stores have found a way around this - they offer their own store-warranty or a third party warranty service. Which isn’t always a bad thing, but that is the most important distinction. Another thing that can be a problem is with user manuals. Depending on where they had imported these grey units from, you may not get an English manual at all. The manuals may be in some foreign language or the retailers take them out before selling them to you and then insert a paper or card pointing you towards an online English version of the manual!
Which is not to say you shouldn’t necessarily go out and purchase grey market units. In fact, there are great deals to be had when purchasing grey units especially for savvy buyers. Sometimes they can be significantly priced lower than the official products. But as I had previously said, aside from warranty and support (and possibly the manuals) these are the exact same items as the officially imported ones.
So really, it’s up to you to weigh the pros and cons of purchasing grey market items. If you’re saving $20-$50 off the price of an official one, is the price difference worth possible not having local warranty support from the official distributor? For some yes it is, but for some people it might not be worth it.
Now, most honest retailers well tell you up-front that they sell grey market units and will explain that it only comes with store warranty. Note that this is entirely different from the “extended warranty” service being offered by several retailers as well. These extended warranty schemes simply add-on to the official warranty offered. So for example, you may purchase an official Canon USA product that comes with the standard 1 year parts and labor warranty and your retailer may offer to add-on an additional year or two of in-store warranty to take effect after the 1 year official warranty from Canon.
For grey units, you don’t get that official 1 year warranty from Canon USA. So you would either get the in-store or third party warranty that takes effect when you purchase the item or you will have to ship your item to Canon Hong Kong or from wherever your retailer had imported from.
Now as I said, there are a lot of legitimate and honest sellers offering grey units only and don’t really mislead you about them and sometimes they are even offered side-by-side with official products, often times the grey units are marked as ‘imports’. And there is absolutely no problem with purchasing from these legitimate and honest sellers as long as you are aware of the distinction between grey market and official imports.
But then, you also have the stores who are simply out there to rip you off. These stores advertise heavily, most times even in popular and reputable photo magazines. They advertise their prices that are often up to 60-80% off of the normal street price! So you place your order, give them your credit card number and patiently wait for that great deal you just ordered. Then a couple of days later, you get a call from a sales guy, who wants to offer you an extra battery at $80 a pop. He tells you the battery that comes with the camera only has a battery life of 30 minutes or 10 shots before it dies. Basically they try to up-sell you other products, some of them items that should come standard with what you ordered - at a price that’s significantly more than what they should be selling for. And before you know it, wham! That great deal you just placed suddenly cost more than had you purchased from your local camera store.
So before you buy, make sure the store you’re dealing with has a good reputation. A good place to start is resellerratings.com and type in the name of the online store where you saw that great deal. Another place to check is with online photography forums, do a search or ask a question - most times you’ll find others who have purchased from the same stores. But as a general rule, if it’s way too good to be true, well it’s most likely a scam. Grey market units are cheaper than their officially imported counterparts - but they’re not waaay too cheap either.
Grey units can offer up great deals - but only if you are aware of the trade-offs with warranty and service and as long as you are purchasing from an honest retailer.