I live in Hong Kong. Where before the price increase, parallel imported Nikon products greatly dominated the market. These products were selling 10-20% cheaper than official goods at that time, where the parallel importers made profit from buying nikon products from regions which they were sold cheaply. Given that Nikon in Hong Kong and China only offer 1 year warranty to customers, I don’t see any reason why people wouldn’t get a 10-20% discount in giving away a fairly short warranty period. And now their time is over, I have not heard of these cheap imports anywhere anymore.

I’ve just been looking at the website of a UK Nikon retailer who also sells used cameras, lenses etc. (no names!). In one of the all-time great examples of “Sorry folks, but there’s money to be made” they’ve hiked the price of some of their used goods ABOVE what they would have been NEW only a couple of weeks ago. This is just plain profiteering, whatever economic terminology you wrap round it

I originally planned to buy a D300, but decided to go FX (I’m a wide-angle junkie from film)/high ISO and get the D700…just before Christmas I nearly had enough money (and enough for a used one @ around £1200). Christmas came, I got what I wanted this year – money for my DSLR fund.

What happens? They increase the prices, sending it well out of my reach for another few months. I’d just about reached that a week ago and they increase the prices AGAIN!? I’m having a really bad time down here…

The whole point of my rant is:

You other commenters can talk all you like about how reasonable it is for Nikon to raise their prices, but the simple truth is that I physically can’t buy a Nikon full-frame at the moment, so I’m seriously considering buying an older 5D.

Now, I like Nikon, but if they raise the price any more, regardless of the currencies, regardless of all the other things, they’ve lost a customer.

That means they’ve lost money because they haven’t sold anything, no matter what the price, and if enough people do that, the company will fail – it’s that simple

It’s too much for me and galling to see a nearly 50% increase in product prices.
The most unforgivable detail is the fact that the price doesn’t go down when the currency goes in favour of the GBP…yet the company is ready and eager to pass the negative fluctuations right on down to the consumer.

(And, yes, I know Canon prices fluctuate as well, but you can get cheap 5Ds at the minute.)

theChipmunk

There was one person who could have prevented the credit crunch and the collapse of the sub-prime market that has led to the current situation. He saw and understood what was going on and he had the authority to put the brakes on the Wall Street banks and lenders. He decided to allow the risk and let the market self-regulate. He’s a smart man but this was his one one catastrophic error, which we will be paying for years from now.

Alan Greenspan.

Let me see now if I have this right. The pound has fallen against the Yen, hence increase?

But since falling in January, it is now back to where it was at the start of December, some 13% higher than the low point.

So, if I have this right. The pound falls against the Yen, prices go up. The pound rises against the Yen, prices go up.

I don’t think it is Gordo who needs a calculator.

Sucks, though…

A paradise is a bit of a stretch of the imagination but it is cheap if your shop around, learn to bargain, and learn a little Cantonese.

Gei ‘chin – ah ? = How much is it ?
Or m-hai loy-hung ! = I’m not a tourist !

My Cantonese is rubbish la !

HK was a paradise for photography equipment buyers – but now its the same as the rest of the world.

The bigger we blow the bubble, the harder is the burst. The sooner we stop this inflating, the softer is the crash.

Those who live beyond their means are destined to leave below their means. This is true for individuals AND for nations. Every nation with a growing national debt is living beyond their means.

Please think about that when you’re in the voting booth next time. Lower taxes isn’t the holy grail. Inflation is in fact a big tax, but people don’t understand it. The governments print money, they use it first. Your money becomes worth less. Sacrificing short term candy will reward you with a lot more long-term candy.

It’s as simple as that. If I would invent a very cheap way to make gold and that would be scientifically prooved and I would get the privilege to be the only one allowed to produce gold that way and I would announce that I would start mass production, what would happen to the price of gold you think? And what would happen to the price of Nikon gear in expressed in Gold?

Yes, that’s right. The more gold I would put out, the less an ounce of gold would be worth.

Now replace the word ‘gold’ with the worth ‘Yen’ , the word ‘I’ with ‘[the central bank]‘ and read it again… because that’s what the central banks do. They ‘supply’ money to the market. But simple economics teach us that the more supply of anything, the lower the price of that thing. The same goes for money.

For those too lazy to look it up themselves:
At some point people started trading goods. Like ‘I have too much food, can I have some of your tools?’. At same point that became inpractical so we used gold as a universal good to pay others. But then it got more difficult to transport gold safely. So we wrote a paper saying “at anytime you can trade this paper for x ounces of gold with me” so we could simply pay with a paper so we didn’t have to take the gold everywhere. But then people started to never cash those papers and simply use those papers to pay. That’s how money was invented. At any time you could change your paper saying “worth x ounce gold” for x ounce gold.

But now we have money that isn’t backed by gold. You can’t go to your bank and say: “Here you have your paper, I want my gold.” And what the central banks are doing, is printing (and today the electronic variant of that) money. So you say that they create gold. Now is creating gold simply impossible (it’s not, but creating an ounce of gold costs more than an ounce of gold). So the effect of them ‘creating gold’ is that it’s worth less and less.

Check the price of gold for example:
http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/cgi/fxplot?b=XAU&c=USD&rd=*&fd=1&fm=1&fy=2000&ld=28&lm=2&ly=2009&y=daily&q=volume&f=png&a=lin&m=0&x=

This is the price of an ounce of gold in USD over the last eight years. You can cleary see that the printing presses are making overtime at present…

The check other timeframes, etc.:
http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/plot.html

History learns us that sooner or later every soft currency crashes.

A typical thing to keep in mind: the people that got out of Vietnam when the Americans withdrew took gold and silver with them, not paper money!

I don’t know why some people seem to have a persecution complex about price changes in a free market economy. It’s just crazy.

http://nikonrumors.com/2009/01/07/nikon-prices-around-the-world.aspx

http://nikonrumors.com/2009/02/24/i-dont-get-it-nikon-to-increase-prices-in-japan.aspx