Dublin Camera retailers poor pricing v Internet

IrishHomer · 25-02-2014 03:27PM

adox wrote: »

Ah apologies Nerro. I got you mixed up with the OP who was buying the same camera body that I did.

Has anyone any experience of buying from hdewcameras? seems too good to be legit to me.

Nerro · 25-02-2014 03:54PM

IrishHomer wrote: »

Has anyone any experience of buying from hdewcameras? seems too good to be legit to me.

Haven't dealt with them personally but they seem legit
www.trustpilot.co.uk/review/hdewcameras.co.uk

mdebets · 25-02-2014 05:00PM

Nerro wrote: »

Ok here is my experience with local shops...
Was in the market for a Canon 6D and to my surprize got a quote of 1699e plus free training and adobe lightroom from ALL the shops....
http://www.connscameras.ie/p/canon-eos-6d/p-8714574593609
http://www.camera.ie/products/canon-eos-6d-free-pro-training
http://berminghamcameras.ie/canon-eos-6d.html
So off to the internet I went
http://www.hdewcameras.co.uk/canon-6d-body-only-1167-p.asp
http://www.flashcamera.co.uk/canon-eos-6d-digital-camera-body/
http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/product/canon-eos-6d-digital-slr-camera-body/321-767A/?gclid=CMnYyY6j5bwCFQhz2wodXTEAEQ
not even its cheaper but in some cases price differs by a couple of hundred pounds/euros....

This is actually a good example, to show that you are a not only not comparing like with like, but also if you do, the savings to be made online are not so big as you think they are.

Take the Canon 6D Body only as example.
You pay the following prices:

Shop|Camera|Shipping|Duty|Total Price|Comment
CONNs|€1699.99|||€1699.99|
Calumet|£1,379.00|£7.99||€1682.02|only ships to Ireland for VAT registered customers, otherwise collect from Belfast
HDEW Cameras|£1,175.00|£19.99|€333.31|€1782.50|grey market
Flash Camera|£1,049.00|₤35.00||€1314.59|grey market
B&H|$1,899.00|$83.86|€332.06|€1775.83|grey market

As you see, other than Flash Camera (talk about this later), the prices don't really vary too much, but associated services do.

If you buy in an Irish shop, you get the camera straight away. If something goes wrong, you have 6 years of consumer rights (3R) and only need to drop it at the shop. In addition, you have a warranty from Canon Ireland if needed.

If you buy at an UK website, you have your UK consumer rights (2 years) and warranty with Canon UK. You still have to sent it off to the UK to avail of it.

If you buy from outside the EU, your customer rights are most likely non existent (see B&H, they provide no warranty), so you have to go through the manufacturer and send it off to them or through some third party.

In addition to this, you need to make sure, where the shop you are buying from is located, to see which consumer rights are valid for you.
Take Flash Camera from above as an example. They have no contact address or Telephone number to contact and even the email address is from a generic provider (live.com). There is no clear indication, under which law UK, US, Hong Kong, etc. they are operating, just some indications. They say, they ship from Scotland, but that doesn't add up with the rest. They say, the cameras have US warranty and they don't sell Nikon DSLRs (an indication that they are located in the US, as Nikon doesn't allow certain cameras to be sold in Europe from a US based shop). This would indicate, that they are US based and US consumer law would apply to you. This combined with the price (which is roughly in line with the other prices minus import duty) would look to me that there is at least at some level some Duty avoidance in place.

mdebets · 25-02-2014 05:09PM

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

well this was three years ago. they gave me back €100 off what i paid for the camera. that's all they would do. i just had to accept it. at the time, i did not want to buy the camera outside of ireland, and there weren't other shops that were selling for the same price.

To be fair, that was totally your fault. If you would have gone to the small claims court, you would have gotten your money back.

This is actually much more likely to happen when you buy online from a store within the EU. Here you have a 7 day cooling off period. What do you think is going to happen with the camera that is returned within 7 days, even if the person has used it extensively within these days?

Nerro · 25-02-2014 05:19PM

Nice table and everything but the reality is that I actually bought the body from flash camera after quite a few emails I sent him (don't know how the fella stays sane if every customer is like me).Fair enough had to wait a month till he got it but the final price was 1267 Euros as I got free shipping because I ordered during Christmas.
Regarding warranty I got 3 years with Canon UK when I registered online so it can be grey, blue or red market for what I care.when my 50mm f1.8 broke in 2 pieces for no apearant reason "camera centre" sent it to UK to fix it so I presume all the warranty from Irish shops is UK based anyway, so why should I pay the middle man premium when I can do that myself? And trust me if your gear is going to brake after warranty period that 6 years consumer rights ain't going to do you any good as you will have to fix it from your own pocket.
At the end of the day 400 Euros plus that I saved is going to go to new lens budget which wouldn't happen if I would buy it locally.

magicbastarder · 25-02-2014 05:26PM

unfortunately lots of retailers operate on the basis that consumers do not know their rights.

some help here:
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/consumer_affairs/consumer_protection/consumer_rights/consumers_and_the_law_in_ireland.html

one of the main ones people do not realise is that the manufacturer's warranty is immaterial in the face of the law; an easy example would be a one year warranty on a washing machine. the law states that the goods must remain in working order for a reasonable period - and a washing machine breaking after 13 months is an unreasonably short period for one to last, and in that scenario you would be able to seek redress with the retailer.

another common issue is where the retailer claims you must contact the manufacturer to seek redress. your legal relationship is with the retailer who sold you the goods, not with the manufacturer. the onus is on the retailer to resolve the issue.

bernard0368 · 25-02-2014 05:39PM

I have used flash camera a couple of times. The guy Ian Kerr is based in Fife in Scotland, he is also known a kerso on ebay.
I have to say I found him to be brilliant in fact I can not remember seeing a bad review about him anywhere.
As for an address I know one person who called to his house to collect a few batteries after leaving his at home.
A quick google show good reports all round.

dirtyghettokid · 25-02-2014 07:01PM

mdebets wrote: »

To be fair, that was totally your fault. If you would have gone to the small claims court, you would have gotten your money back.

not everyone is aware of their rights as a consumer, and at the time, i certainly wasn't. it was three years ago anyways, i've since learned from then.

amdgilmore · 27-02-2014 11:18PM

I'm also in the internet-buying camp.

I'm not a pro, and have no need for loaners while a camera or lens is out for repair (and in any case, I have about 10 cameras) so the 'peace of mind' argument just doesn't wash with me. There is zero benefit for me in paying extra.

I try to buy as much film and film-related equipment as possible from John Gunn's, because they're nice people (who also love film), but I basically refuse to buy in any other Dublin camera shops because of the price differences.

Question for the people who know about these things: I sometimes see cameras and lenses for sale here that are over €300 more expensive than their online counterparts, and frequently in the range of €150-250 dearer than online (including VAT). Are these price differences fully accounted for by the overheads mentioned earlier in this thread? I sometimes wonder.

stcstc · 28-02-2014 09:12AM

i dont sell gear but

having a shopfront is expensive, a huge amount more than a faceless warehouse in some industrial estate

the rents in the centre of dublin are silly money

wasnt there recently a news item about the famous shoe shop on oconnel st, with a rent of 500K. if you think how many pairs of shoes they have to sell to make 500K profit, god its a lot

i recently looked at an out of town industrial unit for rent, 2000 sq ft, not huge, in wicklow, 500 a month with rates of about 1k a year so say 600 a month

now a shop in tallaght in the square 1000 sq ft was up for rent recently at 10k a month

say for example you make 100 profit on every camera on average?

so to make up 9k a month thats either 90 extra cameras or put the profit up slightly to make it less

i know i am over simplifying things but just to try and put some scale on the difference

amdgilmore · 28-02-2014 11:37AM

I often think that if one of the Irish sellers was smart, they'd setup their own online selling business, maybe with a minimal physical presence somewhere in Dublin, offering many of the same perks that people in this thread have mentioned.

I know they couldn't match the grey market sellers, but they could undercut every camera shop in the country while offering many of the same benefits.

In fact... why hasn't this happened already? Am I oversimplifying the issue? (I know very little about biznez).

DaireQuinlan · 28-02-2014 02:13PM

amdgilmore wrote: »

I often think that if one of the Irish sellers was smart, they'd setup their own online selling business, maybe with a minimal physical presence somewhere in Dublin, offering many of the same perks that people in this thread have mentioned.

I know they couldn't match the grey market sellers, but they could undercut every camera shop in the country while offering many of the same benefits.

In fact... why hasn't this happened already? Am I oversimplifying the issue? (I know very little about biznez).

thephotoshop.ie is probably the closest though there's little in the way of camera/lens stuff.

amdgilmore · 28-02-2014 03:39PM

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

thephotoshop.ie is probably the closest though there's little in the way of camera/lens stuff.

I'd actually be interested to hear his take on that idea, if he's still posting here.

Dublin Camera retailers poor pricing v Internet

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