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Post by dreampolice on Oct 24, 2024 16:28:51 GMT
I have my 60th birthday coming up, and as per another thread, my family ask what I want. "Nothing" is not the right answer it would seem. My wife suggested I get a new lens (contributions from her, my mum and daughter).
I therefore, to shut them up, bought a new lens. I went into WEX last week to have a play with a 16mm F1.4 Fuji lens. Very nice but it was £949. No 2nd hand hand ones in though.
I looked online, and got a new one from Cotswold Cameras for £400 less! I know some folk baulk at the mere idea of going for an import, but that is one hell of a saving.
Just briefly tested it in the darkish lounge. What a huge difference to the Tamron 18-300 zoom that is currently on it. Nice and crisp images.
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Post by MJB on Oct 24, 2024 16:57:42 GMT
Grey imports are fine until you need to make a warranty claim, at which point UK repairers won't touch it and you'll end up dealing with someone in SE Asia, or HMRC cotton on to the fact that the relevant duties haven't been paid. Both instances are unlikely to happen, but I do have a friend who got stung for taxes on a grey import high end fishing rod, so it can happen.
Oh, and if WEX reads this they'll think you're a right handbag for fingering their (legitimate) goods and then buying a grey import elsewhere.
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Post by dreampolice on Oct 24, 2024 17:05:46 GMT
If WEX read it, Hi. Sorry. I did buy my last 2 Fuji's and a lens from you, so please forgive me.
Cotswold give their own 3 year warranties and they get good reviews, so a risk I'll take. I understand they are a UK based company and certainly reviews would indicate that that is the case.
I didn't actually look at prices until after I'd been into WEX, so I didn't just use and abuse them, I looked when I found out the cost!
If they'd had 2nd hand in, I wouldv'e bought on from there.
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Post by zx9 on Oct 24, 2024 17:11:53 GMT
I liked both posts, I liked that Nige has a new lens but I also liked Martin's last sentence.
Back when I was in retail we had to contend with doing a demonstration and getting the can you price match Dixons which we could not do, occasionally the non customer would return with their new camera because they were unsure how to use it. Can you show me how to.... No F off back to Dixons is what you wanted to say.
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Post by peterob on Oct 24, 2024 17:42:44 GMT
Birthday congratulations in advance. That WEX price seems high. LCE seem to want £829 which is odd because they usually price match WEX. The lens does have to be ordered, it isn't in stock. Maybe there is a wave of Fuji enthusiasm for it going around and anyone with stock can ask a premium.
I thought grey imports had more or less dried up since Brexit, simply because importing stuff into the UK is more tightly controlled now. I haven't heard the term used for ages.
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Post by MJB on Oct 24, 2024 18:07:13 GMT
Cotswold give their own 3 year warranties and they get good reviews, so a risk I'll take. I understand they are a UK based company and certainly reviews would indicate that that is the case. Assuming they have one in stock in 3 years time. The grey importers simply send you a replacement and they then send the faulty one back from whence it came. I'm not judging anyone who buys a grey import, but there are risks involved. |
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Post by dreampolice on Oct 24, 2024 18:10:08 GMT
Birthday congratulations in advance. That WEX price seems high. LCE seem to want £829 which is odd because they usually price match WEX. The lens does have to be ordered, it isn't in stock. Maybe there is a wave of Fuji enthusiasm for it going around and anyone with stock can ask a premium. I thought grey imports had more or less dried up since Brexit, simply because importing stuff into the UK is more tightly controlled now. I haven't heard the term used for ages. I hadn't heard it either. It was only looking on the WWW when Cotswold Cameras came up. They are honest on their site and tell you that they import. 3. Are these 'imports'?
In short, yes they are. Manufacturers want to fix their prices within an area so as to maximise their profits and they know that as European customers we will pay more for goods. We pay more than Asia and the US for identical items. All cameras are imported into the UK, whether it is by us or Canon and Nikon UK. They are all made at the same factories and work in exactly the same way. The only difference is that we provide the warranty on our models. Sometimes our cameras may be provided with an adaptor for the battery charger and a photocopied manual but apart from these differences they are the same. It is up to you to decide if you would prefer the significant savings or not.
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Post by dreampolice on Oct 24, 2024 18:16:12 GMT
Cotswold give their own 3 year warranties and they get good reviews, so a risk I'll take. I understand they are a UK based company and certainly reviews would indicate that that is the case. Assuming they have one in stock in 3 years time. The grey importers simply send you a replacement and they then send the faulty one back from whence it came. I'm not judging anyone who buys a grey import, but there are risks involved. Maybe so. Wex only offer 1 year warranty, so anything after that you are paying for any service anyway. If after 3 years mine breaks, it'd be down to me to pay for a repair. I didn't buy it for the warranty though, that is incidental. 8. How long is the warranty and is it valid in the UK?
All cameras and lenses come with a 3 year warranty. You can upgrade the warranty to 5 years by visiting this page. All warranty work is carried out in the UK. Oh, I do feel judged. You are hurting my snowflakey feelings! |
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Post by kate on Oct 24, 2024 18:26:23 GMT
You can't put a price on the enjoyment of using the lens. Get out there and have fun. Life's too short to obsess about the rights or wrongs or warranties etc. I used to get lenses from a secondhand shop in London. Browse, covet and buy.  |
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Post by peterob on Oct 24, 2024 18:53:53 GMT
Birthday congratulations in advance. That WEX price seems high. LCE seem to want £829 which is odd because they usually price match WEX. The lens does have to be ordered, it isn't in stock. Maybe there is a wave of Fuji enthusiasm for it going around and anyone with stock can ask a premium. I thought grey imports had more or less dried up since Brexit, simply because importing stuff into the UK is more tightly controlled now. I haven't heard the term used for ages. I hadn't heard it either. It was only looking on the WWW when Cotswold Cameras came up. They are honest on their site and tell you that they import. 3. Are these 'imports'?
In short, yes they are. Manufacturers want to fix their prices within an area so as to maximise their profits and they know that as European customers we will pay more for goods. We pay more than Asia and the US for identical items. All cameras are imported into the UK, whether it is by us or Canon and Nikon UK. They are all made at the same factories and work in exactly the same way. The only difference is that we provide the warranty on our models. Sometimes our cameras may be provided with an adaptor for the battery charger and a photocopied manual but apart from these differences they are the same. It is up to you to decide if you would prefer the significant savings or not.
Not what I understand a grey import to be then. There used to be a very grey market of importers who achieved low prices by sourcing from foreign market resellers but also avoided paying due taxes. The latter is harder to do now. The higher price charged through the official distribution network helps fund the service centre which, in the UK anyway, is quite good. |
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Post by zou on Oct 24, 2024 18:58:47 GMT
All things told I'm not sure how meaningful it is to compare retail prices in different markets. Taxes, duties, and even distribution all cost different amounts. I'm not against grey imports in principle, so long as they are clearly marked as such and there's no bait/switch etc.
The cameras I've bought new in Japan had international warranties, which demonstrates that it's down to the manufacturers. The lenses I bought there are all second hand and had no warranty to speak of, pretty much sold as seen.
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Post by Chester PB on Oct 25, 2024 22:24:14 GMT
In 1980 I wanted to buy a Pentax MX with a 50 mm F1.7 standard lens. The UK price was about £200 because at that time Pentax gear was imported by Rank who added their own generous margin to cover taking on the guarantees. However, an old friend of my father's was flying from Australia to the UK, with a one day stopover in Hong Kong so that so that he could get some made to measure suits made overnight (he did this on every trip), so he was asked to get me the MX and lens at a retailer there. Even after import duty had been paid in the UK, it still cost me less than £100, and was still working perfectly 32 years later when I finally used it in a part-exchange deal 5 years after going digital and knowing then that I would never use it again (the move to digital had happened after the death of Kodachrome).
At half the UK price, an import like that was worth the risk. Later, when Pentax set up their own UK operation, the UK price dropped to £130-£140, which showed how much Rank had been making on the camera.
A few years ago I wanted a Nikon 35 mm slide copier attachment designed to fit their 60 mm macro. It has no optical glass in it, being simply an extending metal tube with a slide holder and diffuser at one and and a filter thread at the other. The UK price was than about £65, but I found a Japanese dealer on eBay who sold me one for £30 including shipping to the UK. It took about 3 weeks to arrive, but there were no problems and it worked perfectly with my second hand Sigma 50 mm F 2.8 macro lens and a stepping ring to match the filter thread to the copier. I would be wary of buying something fragile in this way, but the gamble on the copier was also worth the risk. |
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Post by nimbus on Oct 26, 2024 7:43:29 GMT
Birthday congratulations in advance. That WEX price seems high. LCE seem to want £829 which is odd because they usually price match WEX. The lens does have to be ordered, it isn't in stock. Maybe there is a wave of Fuji enthusiasm for it going around and anyone with stock can ask a premium. I thought grey imports had more or less dried up since Brexit, simply because importing stuff into the UK is more tightly controlled now. I haven't heard the term used for ages. Some Fuji items are in short or almost zero supply. This may or may not be a deliberate strategy from a company who have a much smaller market share than Canon and Sony. |
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Post by Ivor E Tower on Oct 27, 2024 18:03:40 GMT
Grey imports are fine until you need to make a warranty claim, at which point UK repairers won't touch it and you'll end up dealing with someone in SE Asia, or HMRC cotton on to the fact that the relevant duties haven't been paid. Both instances are unlikely to happen, but I do have a friend who got stung for taxes on a grey import high end fishing rod, so it can happen. What kind of pictures can you get on a fishing rod, though? IMHO grey imports are OK so long as legitimate, just another example of "rip-off Britain" with legitimate savings to be had. There is another Surrey-based importer who deals in Olympus/OM stuff; savings of hundreds of pounds can be had on some cameras and lenses, so where is all the extra money from "normal" UK sales prices going? |
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Post by spinno on Oct 27, 2024 18:22:25 GMT
Grey imports are fine until you need to make a warranty claim, at which point UK repairers won't touch it and you'll end up dealing with someone in SE Asia, or HMRC cotton on to the fact that the relevant duties haven't been paid. Both instances are unlikely to happen, but I do have a friend who got stung for taxes on a grey import high end fishing rod, so it can happen. What kind of pictures can you get on a fishing rod, though? IMHO grey imports are OK so long as legitimate, just another example of "rip-off Britain" with legitimate savings to be had. There is another Surrey-based importer who deals in Olympus/OM stuff; savings of hundreds of pounds can be had on some cameras and lenses, so where is all the extra money from "normal" UK sales prices going? Taxes/Duties? |
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