Fellow OzBargainers,
I've recently had this discussion with a lot of people, including around various places on the OzBargain forums and I wanted to have a discussion on the realities of buying Grey Imports and Australian Stock, as well as to dispel myths and rumours about what Grey Imports actually are.
The reason why I wanted to start this discussion is because I think both sides have very valid pros and cons, but the majority of people who suggest buying Grey or buying Australian give the wrong reasons. For me, unless the price is significantly close, I will always buy Grey, the reason for this is because I believe in voting with my wallet, the longer we continue to buy from Australian retailers, the longer we condone their practices of high margins, markups and what we now know as the "Australia Tax".
These are some common myths about buying Grey that I have heard:
1) Grey Imports are Illegal - They're not, there's nothing illegal about grey imports, you're not going to get caught by the AFP or any of that sort of stuff.
2) Grey Import companies are shady companies who steal your money - Again, this is another untrue myth spread by those who probably own shares in JB HiFi or the like. Reputable Grey Import companies such as Kogan, DWI, eGlobal, Expansys and the like all have great reviews on Whirlpool and myself and many other people have purchased successfully from them. Of course, exercise buyer discretion and think, but by no means are grey importers shady or dodgy. People might not be aware, but buying things on Amazon also counts as Grey Imports.
3) Buy from Australia because you're supporting Australians. What a load of bollocks. This sounds like you've caught onto what Gerry Harvey is saying and you've caught the "patriotic Australian" bug. Let me break it down for you. When you walk into a Harvey Norman store and you buy from them, you're not really supporting "Australians", there's no local guy who earns money and delivers a better service for you, you're just lining the pockets of shareholders, who might or might not even be Australian, as well as the pockets of losers like Gerry Harvey. Also, a lot of grey importers are also Australian companies, surprise surprise, I'm not sure whether I'd rather support Gerry Harvey or Ruslan Kogan and his cronies, I'm not sure why people, especially people around here, make it seem like supporting Harvey is good whilst supporting Kogan is bad. Makes no sense.
4) Grey Imports have no Warranty. This is false. You might not have Australian warranty, but you definitely do have warranty. If you're lucky, you might get Australian warranty as well. I know someone who bought an iPad grey and went to an Apple store and they fixed it for him, so your mileage may vary. That said, you simply have to return your product to the country of origin for the warranty process. An example of this is Amazon, who have great warranty. Ship it back to the and they'll deal with it. Again, a lot of grey importers do have great warranty records, exert buyer discretion and research and you'll be able to figure things out.
5) Warranty is actually a big deal. Not really, what's the probability of you getting a DOA product or one that will break under warranty vs. the savings you'll get. Believe it or not, unless there's a genuine manufacturing fault with the product (which will be well documented), warranty isn't actually worth that much, as a dollar amount, at all. With the extremely short warranties you get on all the tech stuff these days and the short life-cycle, most of us throw things out before they're even broken anyway.
Now some of the reasons why I never want to buy local are as follows:
1) Price. Plain and simple really, Australian retailers, especially the big guys like HN, JB HiFi and others, as well as Australian distributors are ripping everyone off. The longer we stick around and buy at these expensive prices, the longer they keep this behaviour up.
2) Supporting losers like Gerry Harvey, JB HiFi, TGG…etc. I don't want to support these businesses because, quite honestly, they're crap businesses who harp on about supporting them because they're Australian when, in reality, they suck. Their business models are crap, their prices are crap and their inventory systems are crap. I'd much rather buy from an innovative business such as Amazon which actually develops new technologies than from ice-age Australian retailers who are always slow to the party and are, quite simply, not deserving of customers. Think about Amazon's inventory system and their web servers. How often do you hear about Amazon going down or having a price error or refunding people because they don't have stock? Not often, right? How often do you hear it happening to Australian retailers? All the time. They need to up their game before they're worthy of being considered.
What's even more ridiculous is that I can buy a camera from eGlobal today and get it within the next 3 - 5 days. The last time someone I knew bought something from Harvey Norman, it took them a good week to get there. How ridiculous when within Australia, they aren't even efficient enough to get things where they need to go faster than grey importers.
3) I do buy from local stores with good business models. You know what one of my favourite Australian stores is? MSY. Yeah, that dodgy looking, warehouse turned into a computer store. You know why I buy from them? Because their prices are competitive with what I can get elsewhere, e.g. on Amazon, their customer service is crap, but they are okay with warranty as the ACCC cracked down on them a few years ago. They have an okay online inventory system and most of the time, I can get in and get out quickly, just not during peak times.
This is what I don't understand. I think what major Australian retailers don't understand is that the days of retail are over. Nobody I know would ever walk into a Harvey Norman and buy stuff. It's just ridiculously overpriced, but not only that, it's staffed by people who are genuinely clueless about the products they are selling. Their computer departments are stocked with young guys who think they know about technology, but in fact, know around half of what an informed consumer who has researched the products would know. Money is being wasted on employing losers, on hiring massive shopping room floors and not on delivering better customer satisfaction.
What I think would help these guys survive is to cut costs and offer a warehouse model, not too different from MSY, where I can just get in, buy what I need and get out without being annoyed by employees who don't know what they're talking about and not paying for the massive shopping room floor they have.
Anyway, that's just my two cents on why I love Grey Import, if you're a Local Buyer, let us know what you love about buying local and share your experiences.
Hope to hear from you guys!
I think the warehouse model works for some people but not others.
People who research beforehand and make a conscious decision to buy a new product would benefit from the warehouse model.
The baby boomer who walks into HN and asks the assistant for "a cable to hook up the dvd player to my TV" and buys the first thing handed to them without knowing anything else would be utterly lost without further help.
I think stores like HN etc would be around for a little while longer purely because of the second type of person but I'm glad we have alternate avenues such as the grey market for the more savvy consumers.