Denton Taylor wrote:
>Last time I was buying Oly goodies in B&H (in person) I was told they had
>just received a large shipment of stuff from Saudi Arabia. I kid you not...
The cleck may have been geographically challenged. I bet the source was
Dubai, or Abu Dhabi, or Bahrain. These little Emirates are well known
tax-free, duty-free heavens, most recently specializing in supplying the
former Soviet Block countries with misc. consumer goods.
Winsor Crosby wrote:
>with the current drop in Oly prices in Japan, and w/o a corresponding drop
>in prices in here, it is not inconceivable that some of the gray market
>cameras being sold in NY could have been intended for the Japanese domestic
>market.
I'd buy this wrt OLY goodies, as well as on misc. lenses and accessories.
However, the Big Four (C*n*n, N*k*n, M*n*lta, and P*nt*x) assign diff.
model names to U.S.-bound bodies, and AFAIK, all the mail-order outlets
who trade in grey market merchandise offer correctly labelled bodies.
>I don't think the gray market requires that you ship things around, just
>that you convince the manufacturer that you are shipping to a cheap market
>and that you deserve the low price for that market. Then you divert the
>goods to a higher priced market like the US.
This theory would work if there were cheaper markets for photogear. The
fact is that with the exception of Japan's domestic market, the U.S. is
the largest, most competitive and hence the cheapest market in the world
for photo equipment (the above Arab Emirates may be an abberation).
In the past, grey market merchandise was born rather creatively. E.g.,
a shipment of gear would arrive in a U.S. harbor. While unloading,
parts of the shipment would be "accidentally" mishandled, and declared
"damaged goods". Since the manufacturer is fully insured, and the
official distributor only wants Grade A merchandise, the damaged lots
would be auctioned off to various jobbers, more often than not -- to our
friends at B&H, Adorama, etc., and et voila -- grey market cameras!
Later on, as these jobbers managed to grab a respectable market share,
the camera manufacturers understood what's good for them, and started
supplying the mail-order houses directly. Sometimes, when such a
direct contact violated existing agreements with the local authorized
distributors, transactions would be disguised, e.g. conducted through
3-rd parties. In essence almost everyone profits from the grey market,
and so it's here to stay.
Cheers,
/Gary Schloss.
Studio City, CA
schloss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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