Nikon getting tough on illegal suppliers

StewartR

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This letter came into my hands by accident. I've identified the correct addressee and forwarded it. But it's very interesting. The person to whom this is addressed runs a small Amazon Marketplace retailer which has a presence on the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain sites; and on the Germany site he has a couple of Nikon lenses for sale.

I wonder whether this means Nikon are going to get tough on the major black market retailers, or whether they're only interested in picking off the small fry?

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Is 'illegal' the right word? Grey imports might be breaching the terms of purchase with Nikon, but that would be a civil not a criminal matter.

But interesting reading none-the-less. Thanks for sharing.
 
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Excuse my ignorance here, but. If Nikon has set up this selective dealer network, how come this small dealer is able to get their hands on Nikon goods to sell in the first place? Or, am I missing something here?
 
If Nikon products are only available through this selective distribution network (either in the EU or further afield), then someone Nikon have trusted distribution with is selling on product to this seller. Poor show by Nikon going after the customer rather than the distributor who is making this available.
 
Nikon dont care so long as they make a sale, and a sale of a grey market camera is better for them as they dont have to honour warranty so cheaper for them in the long run.
 
Llamaman said:
Is 'illegal' the right word? Grey imports might be breaching the terms of purchase with Nikon, but that would be a civil not a criminal matter.

But interesting reading none-the-less. Thanks for sharing.
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From a strictly pedantic point of view "illegal" may or may not be the most accurate description - but the distinction would be lost on most of the public.

They're going the intellectual property route - if they initiate an injunction via civil proceedings once it's been granted breaching it becomes a criminal matter.

There are several possible criminal law routes that could be taken (it depends on some specific details of the goods and the sales), but these wouldn't be initiated by Nikon - they'd have to persuade the German authorities to take it up.

Manufacturers could stamp out grey sales within a year or so if they really wanted to, but as Gary mentions ultimately a sale is a sale when viewed at the global level and somewhere along the line Nikon will have received a wholesale price they were happy with (unless they're stolen). This type of action has probably been initiated because a legitimate German dealer has made a complaint. Or there are rumblings of general discontent in the official dealer network and Nikon have to be seen to do something.
 
Dinsdale said:
Excuse my ignorance here, but. If Nikon has set up this selective dealer network, how come this small dealer is able to get their hands on Nikon goods to sell in the first place? Or, am I missing something here?
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Bought from Asian dealer who is authorised, sells over here for a profit?

Seems a bit petty, at the end of the day stopping someone selling your product on your behalf is costing you money too!
 
I can bet they not going after any large distributors (especially the large grey importers) we had same in fishing tackle industry with 2 very large manufacturers years ago when they were coming down really hard on small shops selling their rods and reels at more discount than they "authorised/recommended" with threats to remove supply etc but would do nothing about the huge players in market doing same, at the end of the day it's a sale of their product to the marketplace.
 
I can appreciate that a small authorised dealer gets a poor deal as they have to pay full whack and still have all the shop overheads but Nikon have already sold these lenses at a price they were happy with. I can't see that they're losing anything, not even reputation, so where's the damages?.

Seems like bully boy tactics against a very small fish in a big muddy pond.
 
Nikon GMBH are the ones losing out on a sale. It's their jobs that are on the line so it's no surprise that they're going to do everything they legally can do to prevent them losing sales to smugglers and thieves.
 
You sure it's a genuine letter and not a competitor trying to stop someone selling. The website in header is niko.de not nikon so takes you passion for food website
 
If this is genuine,it's a pity that Nikon could't direct a little more energy into solving quality control issues that have plagued recent releases (D800 focus points, D600 shutter debris, D750 flare and 300mm lens IS problems), rather than chasing sales minnows. The grey markets exist because Nikon and other manufacturers soak certain countries like the UK where items are typically charged on a dollar/pound ratio of 1:1. The Olympus EPL6 and kit lens has just been introduced to the US for $299, under £200 at todays exchange rate, it isn't likely to be that price if it comes to the UK. I note that the Olympus 40-150 f2.8 is typically £1299 in the UK but I've seen it in Australia for AUS $1299 inclusive, almost half the UK price. My wife did buy a Nikon WiFi dongle from Australia, £22 instead of the UK price of £44. So Iong live the minnows so far as I'm concerned!
 
hollis_f said:
Nikon GMBH are the ones losing out on a sale. It's their jobs that are on the line so it's no surprise that they're going to do everything they legally can do to prevent them losing sales to smugglers and thieves.
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So who are the smugglers and thieves Frank, surely you dont mean the people who paid Nikon the exact price Nikon were selling them into the trade for, bleedin bounders the lot of them
 
AdamSi said:
You sure it's a genuine letter and not a competitor trying to stop someone selling. The website in header is niko.de not nikon so takes you passion for food website
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I seriously doubt this is genuine as Nikon.de would have that header pre printed on thousands of letter heads and would surely have seen the error
 
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I was going to question its validity too as the second bullet point "you are hereby notified" etc doesn't seem to make much sense legally as it is not specific. Nikon are going to suspend distribution in the EU. Really?

The email address error casts even more doubt.
 
also if they know the recipients name (in order to send the letter) why is it addressed dear madam / sir ?
 
To be clear I did not mean to sduugest that stewart hah had abything to do with falsfying this - just that my feeling is that whoever sent it originally was not actually Nikon GHMB
 
AdamSi said:
You sure it's a genuine letter and not a competitor trying to stop someone selling. The website in header is niko.de not nikon so takes you passion for food website
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Am I sure it's genuine? No. I can't be sure. But I think it is. It was on proper letterheaded paper and it was posted from Germany.
AdamSi said:
The website in header is niko.de not nikon so takes you passion for food website
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Gary Coyle said:
I seriously doubt this is genuine as Nikon.de would have that header pre printed on thousands of letter heads and would surely have seen the error
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That's a good point for which I don't have a good answer. Perhaps it was just a typo. I mean, they're not entirely unknown. If you think it's impossible for Nikon to have made a mistake in the spelling of their website, then surely it's absolutely, totally impossible for a National Mint to make a mistake in the spelling of the name of their country on a new coin? But it happened recently: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/15/us-mint-gaffe-odd-idUSTRE61E4FJ20100215
big soft moose said:
also if they know the recipients name (in order to send the letter) why is it addressed dear madam / sir ?
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They didn't know the name of the recipient. The first line which I've redacted was the name of the company, and the second line which I've redacted was the street address.

Perhaps it's worth explaining how I came across it. The correspondence address for my company, Lenses For Hire Ltd, is Unit 203, 5 High Street, Maidenhead. That's not our actual operational address, for a variety of reasons; it's a branch of Mail Boxes Etc (MBE) where I have an account. This letter came in to 5 High Street, but it didn't have a unit number or a business name on the envelope, so the guys who work there weren't sure what to do with it. But it was in an envelope with a Nikon GmbH logo on it, and the letter was posted from Germany so it looked quite "official", and mine is the only photography-related business with an account there, so they put it aside for me. When I was next in there, they produced this, and I didn't think it was mine (I have no dealings with Nikon GmbH), so we opened it together. It clearly wasn't addressed to me, but the owner of MBE didn't recognise the business name on the letter as belonging to any of his clients. I offered to try to work out who this business was, so I took a copy of the letter, and I did some digging, and I found them. It turns out that this business and its owner do not have an account at MBE - apparently they're just "squatting" on the address, presumably because it looks good. (There are hundreds of local businesses that have their correspondence addresses at MBE.) Obviously they have no intention of collecting any mail which might be sent to them there. So anybody who sees this address listed as their "customer service" address and tries to contact them there is going to be sorely disappointed! I'm not quite sure what can be done about that though. I don't think these characters have actually committed any offences in relation to the address, so they'll probably get a sternly worded letter from MBE HQ's legal team and they'll be on a few black lists somewhere.

Taking a step back for a second, I do agree that the whole thing is a bit odd. This "business", if you can call it that, has Amazon storefonts in 5 countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) and when I checked them out the other day they didn't have more than a handful of products on any of them, and only one Nikon lens. It does seem odd that Nikon would go after them, but it would be even odder if the letter was a fake, given that it was sent from Germany in a Nikon branded envelope. I think the most likely explanation is that Nikon in Germany has a semi-automated process of scanning the Amazon Marketplace for Nikon products and sending these cease-and-desist letters.
 
big soft moose said:
To be clear I did not mean to sduugest that stewart hah had abything to do with falsfying this - just that my feeling is that whoever sent it originally was not actually Nikon GHMB
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No worries. I didn't think you were suggesting that.
 
Alastair said:
They're going the intellectual property route - if they initiate an injunction via civil proceedings once it's been granted breaching it becomes a criminal matter.
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Breaching an injunction is contempt of court, that can either be a criminal or civil offence. If the order was related to a civil dispute then most likely the judge will find civil contempt rather than criminal, although it could depend on the severity.
 
hollis_f said:
Nikon GMBH are the ones losing out on a sale. It's their jobs that are on the line so it's no surprise that they're going to do everything they legally can do to prevent them losing sales to smugglers and thieves.
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Bingo! I think I can see what's going on here now - please shoot me down in flames if I'm wrong. AN Other is buying Nikon gear in another country, say Asia, at a huge discount but at the agreed rate for that area. It exports them to said small dealer in Germany who then sells them for profit, instead of getting the goods from Nikon Germany who have to sell them at a higher price. Therefore Nikon Germany are losing out on business at their agreed rate. Therefore, Nikon Germany are getting upset and threatening said small dealer.
How does that hang?
 
Dinsdale said:
Bingo! I think I can see what's going on here now - please shoot me down in flames if I'm wrong. AN Other is buying Nikon gear in another country, say Asia, at a huge discount but at the agreed rate for that area. It exports them to said small dealer in Germany who then sells them for profit, instead of getting the goods from Nikon Germany who have to sell them at a higher price. Therefore Nikon Germany are losing out on business at their agreed rate. Therefore, Nikon Germany are getting upset and threatening said small dealer.
How does that hang?
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The question one must ask is - how is the small dealer in Germany able to sell them at a profit, while undercutting Nikon GMBH?. Nikon GMBH, being much larger, will almost certainly get a better deal than any small dealer when they buy stuff from Nikon in Asia.
 
See, all the more reason to stick with Canon........:coat::exit::canon:
 
hollis_f said:
The question one must ask is - how is the small dealer in Germany able to sell them at a profit, while undercutting Nikon GMBH?. Nikon GMBH, being much larger, will almost certainly get a better deal than any small dealer when they buy stuff from Nikon in Asia.
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I can see what you mean, but it all depends on how much discount the Asian supplier is getting in relation to the German supplier. Sometimes it is cheaper for a supplier to get goods from abroad rather than buy at home. Imagine the size of the Asian market compared to that of the Germans, plus Asia is Nikons home market and they may as a result get a far greater discount on the goods. It is quite conceivable that the small company are able to purchase abroad in bulk at the right price for the Asian market, ship them to Germany (including taxes etc.) and sell them at a price set just below that that they would if they purchased from the German outlet. This would draw in customers to them due to the lower prices but make them enough profit to survive. If the small outlet has low overheads (which presumably they have being on Amazon Market place) they don't have to make too much in the way of profit to survive.
 
Dinsdale said:
I can see what you mean, but it all depends on how much discount the Asian supplier is getting in relation to the German supplier. Sometimes it is cheaper for a supplier to get goods from abroad rather than buy at home.
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But Nikon GMBH will be buying their stuff directly from the parent company in Japan. The small dealer will be buying from a middle-man who will be taking his cut. So the small dealer will be paying more than Nikon GMBH.
 
hollis_f said:
But Nikon GMBH will be buying their stuff directly from the parent company in Japan. The small dealer will be buying from a middle-man who will be taking his cut. So the small dealer will be paying more than Nikon GMBH.
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As @Dinsdale points to, I imagine it would be down to the fact that the small dealer with minimal overheads requires lower profits to survive.
 
Or it might be down to the fact that the small dealer isn't paying import duties and VAT.

I should stress that I have no information whatsoever relating to this particular retailer's business practices, but we all know that it goes on, and it enables retailers who don't give a stuff about the law to undercut legitimate retailers by 20%.
 
I would seriously question if that letter is legitimate.
If it is it looks like Nikon are just trying to get round their warranty obligations in the EU which I think they will have a really hard time enforcing.
 
WattieTattie said:
I would seriously question if that letter is legitimate.
If it is it looks like Nikon are just trying to get round their warranty obligations in the EU which I think they will have a really hard time enforcing.
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The way I read that, you think it *is* from Nikon (which some have questioned), but you think their approach is unsound?
 
StewartR said:
The way I read that, you think it *is* from Nikon (which some have questioned), but you think their approach is unsound?
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Im just not entirely sure that Nikon could prevent a small trader trading in the "Single Market" that the EU is.
Unless there is something else going on here or I have completely misunderstood the letter then this seems to be what Nikon are trying to do.
 
WattieTattie said:
Im just not entirely sure that Nikon could prevent a small trader trading in the "Single Market" that the EU is.
Unless there is something else going on here or I have completely misunderstood the letter then this seems to be what Nikon are trying to do.
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AdamSi provided a link earlier to a reference which might explain the legal background is concerned. From that reference it looks like it's an action based on German law, so could presumably only be applied in Germany, and it's pretty restrictive - but apparently legal. Maybe.

AdamSi said:
Sounds like Germany only? And been around since Jan 2014 with other companies

http://www.eversheds.com/global/en/...e_Distribution_German_practice_Internet_Sales
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In that case guys, scrub my previous comments/theorem rediscounted sales. Barking up the wrong tree... well barking anyway. :)
Sounds like Nikon don't want their goods sold "on-line" in Germany as it cheapens their brand image; simple as.
 
WattieTattie said:
I would seriously question if that letter is legitimate.
If it is it looks like Nikon are just trying to get round their warranty obligations in the EU which I think they will have a really hard time enforcing.
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Would agree with that !
 
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