Nikon Going Forward

[Warren D]

I got to thinking (a dangerous thing!) when I read another thread here about a consumer wanting a 500pf. It seems that many dealers are out of stock yet the OP found one at Nikon Sales. This makes me wonder if Nikon is holding out on dealers? With limited availability it appears that Nikon would rather sell items itself as opposed to sending stock to dealers. Maybe it's just that they treat themselves the same as dealers and because less people think to buy directly from them, they have stock when dealers have sold out. Or maybe, they are trying to transition to a business model where only they sell their products. There are more than a few manufacturers that do that. Nikon Service has for quite some time now farmed out repairs. When I sent my D5 to Nikon USA for repair 2 years ago, it came back from a shop in the Bronx. It took a lot of research to figure out they were on contract from Nikon yet not owned by them. We are also not able to send items directly to this Bronx repair facility, there is little info on them and they can't be reached directly. They also don't come close to the quality of work Nikon USA repair is known for. When I get repaired gear back from Nikon USA it usually looks like new. For those not familiar with Nikon USA Service, you can only get a D5 (and D850 and others) serviced by Nikon, the "authorized service" repair facilities can't touch them as Nikon does not offer them support.
In the end, we'll have to see if there is a shift away from independant dealers and toward a corporate sales approach. Like their service, Nikon USA might create their own distribution/sales network like Apple and the Apple Stores.

 

[Steve]

I think Nikon has a distribution model they use with their stores and likely the Nikon USA store is simply part of that and happened to have a lens. At least, I hope that's the case!

I'm not 100% confident that we'd enjoy only buying from Nikon USA. I've heard people complain that when they had a defective camera or lens purchased directly through Nikon, Nikon didn't want to do an exchange but instead a repair. In addition, there are still a lot of people that buy directly from camera stores and I don't see Nikon setting up a bunch of those thought the country given their current financial situation. Still, there's no way to know - (your repair example is food for thought) I just hope they leave things as they are.

 

[Warren D]

I'm not saying I'd like to see that business model but I could see that Nikon might think it a solution to some problems, especially the gray market one. I agree that I don't like buying a new lens or body and finding it defective out of the box and being told to send it for repair. I've had enough experiences with Nikon repair to be wary, I could see sending the new gear in only to be told they couldn't fix it and as such, would send a re-furb. That would get me seriously thinking of jumping ship.