This afternoon I popped into Morris Photographic, Oxford’s main independant camera shop, to look at tripods and to enquire about the Nikon D200 camera body and the Nikor 17-200mm VR lens.
The person behind the counter told me initially that if I did order the camera I’d be 3rd in line and that only a few days before they’d had a delivery of two cameras. Anyway, he decided to call up Nikon UK for an update…
The upshot of the conversation with Nikon UK was this:-
(a) Nikon UK have an order book for the D200 running into a few thousand but Nikon Japan are allocating only 500 cameras a month to the UK. It’ll be at least 6 weeks until Morris Photographic will get any more deliveries. (The person behind the counter later told me that there was no point in even taking my details as being interested in this case.)
(b) The delivery lead time for the 70-200mm F2.? lens which is not a cheap lens is currently 12 months.
(c) Nikon UK don’t even have a delivery timescale for the Nikor 17-200mm VR lens I want.
So, basically, don’t even bother trying to buy any Nikon gear unless it’s at least a year old and/or obsolete because you’ll not be able to get one. It looks like Nikon Japan aren’t interested in selling stuff in the UK.
yes well, to be fair…
Nikon sales here aren’t great over the years, people here aren’t great buyers, statistics to Nikon themselves would reflect that. So lets face it, people here are poor, and those who can afford it are going to go over to Japan to get what they want. Business sometimes may not make sense to the consumer, but hey, global issues rarely are. It is pants, and I do think it can get to a point where it is silly. I do sympathise, say if I want my camera fixed I would be better off going back to Hong Kong to do it, even though it has a world wide guarantee. Life is stupid like that sometimes.