Where Do You Purchase Your Cameras and/or Accessories?

Hi, As Donald states "CiC takes great care not to be seen to be promoting any one manufacturer or retailer over another" but does not mention countries, so I try to buy all my small accessories from the USA either from Ebay or a shop that will ship out at a not over inflated ship cost, to date I have had no problems (touch wood), when you convert the GBP to the USD it's amazing the savings to be made even with the cost of P&P, as an example I just bought the X-Rite Monitor Calibrator i1 Display 2 Brand new for 101.39 USD all in (approx £64.70) At Amazon UK £129.95 new.
Russ

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ricco

Being an Aussie - I can provide you with comment.

I used to buy from local stores but have stopped. Recently I purchased a 24-105mm and 580 flash from topbuy.com.au and everything got delivered without a problem.

This pains me because I come from a small business background but I shop on the internet. When I go to a shop and get dodgy service AND have to pay a 10-20% premium including delivery I can't stomach it. I don't mind paying extra for good service but I can't deal with rude salespeople that aren't interested in helping and look down on you if you are not a world reknown professional photographer.

I don't know whether it is an Australian thing or a Perth thing but this isn't confined to camera shops and I simply cannot find good service any more.

---

It's not a Perth thing. Happens on the other side of the country as well. The bizarre thing is that buying a lot of items from the online shops bypasses GST as well, which can be more than the cost of freight. So in that respect, the government isn't doing a great job of supporting local business.

I buy from an online store in the Netherlands. I like the wider choice that it gives me over the local stores (they only have the most commonly sold cameras and hardly any lenses) and the better pricing.
I dont like buying abroad with this kind of equipment because of differences in warranties, electricity (plugs dor charger) etc.
The store I use has a physical outlet as well, so in case warranty is needed I could always go there.