grey imports

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raythefab

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What actually does this mean, i pointed out to a member that the lens he was selling used was about the same price as a new one from Microglobe, he answered ah yes but they are grey imports and mine has warranty left on it, does this mean goods bought from microglobe dont carry a warranty, there still made by canon:thinking:
Hope ive put this in the right place thank you(y)
 
My understanding is,A grey import is from outside the EU and if you have an issue you don't have a European warranty so it will be a lot of hassle posting back to microglobe etc. Some have worldwide warranties but it just seems easier with a UK copy of a lens cause you can just stroll into your local jessops/jacobs to get it repaired.
 
Grey imports, generally refer to goods that have arrived in the country, with either no or very little import tax or VAT paid on them.
As far as I am aware there is no difference in spec on photographic equipment.
As long as you can trust the seller, and its not a copy.
Sigma will not honour a warranty, on an item that has been bought this way. I can't speak for canon, as I don't know their policy, but if you do buy canon as I did for a lens you do get a 2 year worldwide warranty.
 
Exactly what Richard said, it doesn't mean they don't have a warranty, only that the warranty is held in the country from which they were imported [often Hong kong, USA, etc] and therefore they have to go back there for any free warranty repairs, which of course = time without your lens/camera. Mind you, I do happen to know that Microglobe have paid to have a lens repaired here that was a grey import because they had [accidently possibly] sold it as UK lens. ;)
 
Richard.T said:
My understanding is,A grey import is from outside the EU and if you have an issue you don't have a European warranty so it will be a lot of hassle posting back to microglobe etc. Some have worldwide warranties but it just seems easier with a UK copy of a lens cause you can just stroll into your local jessops/jacobs to get it repaired.
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Its no hassle at all ive retuned goods back to microglobe and got my money back
http://www.microglobe.co.uk/catalog/shipping.php
 
Grey imports can save a lot of cash of the new price (although not so much lately, it seems). You pay your money and take your chance. What are the odds on needing the warranty? Small, but you never know. I don't understand why people ask this question about used kit though - It's not like manufacturer warranties are transferable anyway.

Personal preference I suppose. I don't buy off ebay or gumtree - more chance you'll be scammed or sold stolen kit and with little scope for recompense.
 
SuperAP said:
Grey imports can save a lot of cash of the new price (although not so much lately, it seems). You pay your money and take your chance. What are the odds on needing the warranty? Small, but you never know. I don't understand why people ask this question about used kit though - It's not like manufacturer warranties are transferable anyway.

Personal preference I suppose. I don't buy off ebay or gumtree - more chance you'll be scammed or sold stolen kit and with little scope for recompense.
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I wasnt refering to the warranty part my it seems some people sell used kit at a fair price others want the nearly new price, but when they are buying they want to get things for nothing:)
 
I think explains things best - its from Sigma UK position...

http://www.sigma-imaging-uk.com/pdfs/going_grey.pdf

but many other manufactures (Tokina.eu and Nikon UK on bodies) all take the same stance.

Essentially - grey import = no warranty service in the UK from the manufacturer or official importer in the case of Tamron and Tokina (Intro2020 / Kenro)
 
There's an awful lot of assumptions going on there. I have never had any of those problems outlined. In fact the only trouble I have had was with a Sigma lens, and that was bought here.
 
Basically what i am saying is there are people who over price there used gear and when you point out that you can buy new for the same price they use the grey imports tag to justify there asking price:(
 
raythefab said:
Basically what i am saying is there are people who over price there used gear and when you point out that you can buy new for the same price they use the grey imports tag to justify there asking price:(
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Well I can see their point.

If I buy a lens legally in the UK (which I do), then I'm paying 17.5% VAT.
If I illegally import a lens, I'm probably not paying VAT.

A UK lens has cost me more, so I can understand why folks get hacked off "price pointing" Grey's.

Actually over on AVF this is the rule.."Price comparisons to grey imports from Hong Kong will be removed at a moderator's discretion. They do not come with a UK warranty and avoiding UK VAT and import duty is illegal, so caveat emptor applies. Members are entitled not to be affected by such a price comparison

www.avforums.com/forums/digital-cam...advertised-elsewhere-protecting-yourself.html
 
puddleduck said:
Well I can see their point.

If I buy a lens legally in the UK (which I do), then I'm paying 17.5% VAT.
If I illegally import a lens, I'm probably not paying VAT.

A UK lens has cost me more, so I can understand why folks get hacked off "price pointing" Grey's.

Actually over on AVF this is the rule.."Price comparisons to grey imports from Hong Kong will be removed at a moderator's discretion. They do not come with a UK warranty and avoiding UK VAT and import duty is illegal, so caveat emptor applies. Members are entitled not to be affected by such a price comparison

www.avforums.com/forums/digital-cam...advertised-elsewhere-protecting-yourself.html
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I import nothing never have never will im talking about microglobe London
 
A 'grey' import is just something brought into the county by someone other than the 'official importer' or manufacturer. That is it, that is all that it means!

Whether there is a problem depends on the manufacturer and the wording of their warranty!

Some manufacturers have a worldwide warranty - in this case there is absolutely no problem

Some manufacturers have a limited warranty and some have none. It is worth checking the warranty with the manufacturer before buying.

BUT - Some grey importers give you a replacement warranty, Digital Rev include a 7 year worldwide warranty with a lot of their lenses using a third party company.

ALSO - Sometimes the specifications of SOME items varies from country to country. This is biggest with cars and you can see that the items included in some countries is totally different. In this country people expect lots of extras so a UK spec car often has more extras built in. In other countries they prefer to add them as options.

An example of a decent worldwide warranty is Apple. You can buy anything from anywhere and it is covered. You can even buy ANY keyboard in ANY country! So you can buy Applecare for example from Ireland where it costs £98 on ebay and use it on a UK laptop bought here saving £180. Apple have no issues.
 
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raythefab said:
I import nothing never have never will im talking about microglobe London
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Dunno about them - I've never used them as I do not deal with Grey Importers - false economy as you can't get the manufacture to deal direct with any problems.

I need to know I can get my gear dealt with by Sigma / Nikon / Tamron etc etc directly, not via a seller.
 
puddleduck said:
Dunno about them - I've never used them as I do not deal with Grey Importers - false economy as you can't get the manufacture to deal direct with any problems.

I need to know I can get my gear dealt with by Sigma / Nikon / Tamron etc etc directly, not via a seller.
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Point taken(y) but i was trying to buy a used lens that was £7 less than a new one at microglobe i thought that wasnt on anyway he wouldnt sell i wouldnt buy so its water under the bridge now:puke:
 
Gerods said:
Grey imports, generally refer to goods that have arrived in the country, with either no or very little import tax or VAT paid on them.
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Sorry, but that's incorrect. Whilst some importers may underpay or avoid payments of duty this has nothing to do with whether an item is "grey" or not.

The proper name for this practice is Parallel Importing, that is goods imported outwith the official channels.

The term "Grey Market" was, iirc originally coined by the motor industry in attempt to stem the flow of parallel imports, the inference is that such goods similar to "Black Market" (i.e, stolen/illegal) , or somehow inferior or not fit for use in the second country, which is not the case as in 99.9% of cases the goods come from the same original sources.

Grey market goods don't necessarily have to come from unofficial sources either, a few years back the UK market was flooded with cheap Pirelli tyres and it transpired that they were being shipped here and sold by Pirelli's Italian distributor behind the back of their UK one.....
 
As it happens, I bought a couple of Tamron lenses from Japan, which were therefore clearly "grey". One of them needed re-calibrating, and Tamron's UK agent Info2020 were more than happy to do this for me under their worldwide guarantee. All I needed to do was prove my purchase.
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
As it happens, I bought a couple of Tamron lenses from Japan, which were therefore clearly "grey". One of them needed re-calibrating, and Tamron's UK agent Info2020 were more than happy to do this for me under their worldwide guarantee. All I needed to do was prove my purchase.
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This is what I was saying, it depends on the manufacturer's warranty. So Tamron join Apple in the Yippee section :)
 
puddleduck said:
Well I can see their point.

If I buy a lens legally in the UK (which I do), then I'm paying 17.5% VAT.
If I illegally import a lens, I'm probably not paying VAT.

A UK lens has cost me more, so I can understand why folks get hacked off "price pointing" Grey's.
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It's an interesting discussion.

Why is it unfair to price point using greys? What is the advantage, for example, of buying a used lens originally bought at Jessops over a new lens from Microglobe? :shrug:

AV have it wrong - As has been pointed out, "grey" does NOT mean illegal. It simply means not brought in by the official importer(s). And their point about warranties is invalid, unless they also specify that the seller MUST take up any future warranty issues on behalf of the buyer, as they hold the warranty registration. Which I doubt.
 
SuperAP said:
It's an interesting discussion.

Why is it unfair to price point using greys? What is the advantage, for example, of buying a used lens originally bought at Jessops over a new lens from Microglobe? :shrug:

AV have it wrong - As has been pointed out, "grey" does NOT mean illegal. It simply means not brought in by the official importer(s). And their point about warranties is invalid, unless they also specify that the seller MUST take up any future warranty issues on behalf of the buyer, as they hold the warranty registration. Which I doubt.
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AVF don't have it wrong. Read the quoted text. Carefully.

Clue: Microglobe are not in HK, so are presumably VAT registered.

Their rules are to stop someone pointing at Hong Kong sellers who will mark down VAT, or send them as "repaired lens" etc.
 
puddleduck said:
AVF don't have it wrong. Read the quoted text. Carefully.

Clue: Microglobe are not in HK, so are presumably VAT registered.

Their rules are to stop someone pointing at Hong Kong sellers who will mark down VAT, or send them as "repaired lens" etc.
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Ah, ok - that's reasonable enough :bonk:

And from that perspective I agree - it is unfair to price point sellers from outside the EU.
 
SuperAP said:
Ah, ok - that's reasonable enough :bonk:

And from that perspective I agree - it is unfair to price point sellers from outside the EU.
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Hmm:thinking: so does that prove my point or am i reading this wrong:cautious:
 
Flash In The Pan said:
The term "Grey Market" was, iirc originally coined by the motor industry in attempt to stem the flow of parallel imports, the inference is that such goods similar to "Black Market" (i.e, stolen/illegal) , or somehow inferior or not fit for use in the second country, which is not the case as in 99.9% of cases the goods come from the same original sources.
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This is pretty close to my understanding from my days of motorbikes where parallel and grey imports are/were a common thing.

Parallel imports are exactly the same thing as you buy over here but made for a foreign market, in the case of bikes then speedos were in KPH not MPH and lights dipped to the wrong side of the road for example. Just like camera gear you got a warranty from the dealer but the official importers wouldn't touch the bikes with a barge pole.

Grey imports are products not available in your home market, Honda NSR250s weren't officially imported after about 1990 or so so all the bikes imported after that were Grey imports, same goes for most of the 4-stroke 400cc race-reps. There's plenty of cars around such as those minibus-4x4 hybrids you see about that were never officially imported, another example of Grey imports. It'd be a bit like Nikon making a D5 with a medium format chip in it for the japanese market only, if someone imported it over here it would be a Grey import because there is no home market equivelant.
 
i got my sigma 24-70 F/2.8 from microglobe,as it was the only place i could source one in this country(sony fit).after not being able to source one,i posted on here if anyone could point me in the direction of a supplier,to which i was pointed in the direction of microglobe by marc(fabs),as he'd recently got his from them.i rang them up to check on availability,to which they said they had some in stock...picked one up from them a few days later.marc had a problem with his recently,so sent it to sigma for repair under warranty,to be then told by sigma that it wasn't a UK lens,so not under sigma UK warranty.he then contacted microglobe who then contacted sigma to arrange,and pay for the repair themselves,which is what microglobe do apparently...just to add that neither myself or fabs knew that microglobe sold grey imports at the time of purchase,and that full VAT etc..was paid at time of purchase.
 
stan the man said:
i got my sigma 24-70 F/2.8 from microglobe,as it was the only place i could source one in this country(sony fit).after not being able to source one,i posted on here if anyone could point me in the direction of a supplier,to which i was pointed in the direction of microglobe by marc(fabs),as he'd recently got his from them.i rang them up to check on availability,to which they said they had some in stock...picked one up from them a few days later.marc had a problem with his recently,so sent it to sigma for repair under warranty,to be then told by sigma that it wasn't a UK lens,so not under sigma UK warranty.he then contacted microglobe who then contacted sigma to arrange,and pay for the repair themselves,which is what microglobe do apparently...just to add that neither myself or fabs knew that microglobe sold grey imports at the time of purchase,and that full VAT etc..was paid at time of purchase.
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To that ive got to say well done microglobe:clap:
 
I bought a couple of things from Microglobe and I think on the receipt they stated 1 year Microglobe warranty.

I bought some Nikon Binoculars and they were a bargain!
 
stan the man said:
just to add that neither myself or fabs knew that microglobe sold grey imports at the time of purchase,and that full VAT etc..was paid at time of purchase.
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That's interesting. Regardless of how well Microglobe handled it, that's a bit naughty. Is there any obligation on Sigma's part if you can prove VAT was paid?

How many other manufacturers turn round and say 'sorry - that didn't come from one of our approved suppliers, so we're not honouring the warranty'.

I wonder how that would stand up in court...
 
So, possibly asking a question that may have been asked before, what would a lens - say Canon for arguments sake, bought from "Kerso" be classed as (I'm sure I read he imports them) and how would you claim under warrenty :shrug:

Cheers
 
SuperAP said:
That's interesting. Regardless of how well Microglobe handled it, that's a bit naughty. Is there any obligation on Sigma's part if you can prove VAT was paid?

How many other manufacturers turn round and say 'sorry - that didn't come from one of our approved suppliers, so we're not honouring the warranty'.

I wonder how that would stand up in court...
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as i understand it,you do get the standard one year warranty(even if microglobe pay for it),but not the 3 year one that comes with sigma UK lens.if i had known before hand,i probably wouldn't have bought it IF i could have sourced a sony mount one elsewhere.
 
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