Nikon Price Increases (U.K.)

Another one? :mad: What are they trying to do make it so the average joe can’t afgird their lenses :confused: No wonder people buy grey :rolleyes:
 
Us poor canon shooters have suffered the same in the past year or so.
 
Eloise said:
just a heads up its being reported over on NikonRumors.com that there may be price increases coming in June.

It appears that Nikon are adjusting contract terms and dealers may increase prices as a result.

Anyway the thread is here — https://nikonrumors.com/2018/05/14/rumors-new-nikon-price-increase-coming-to-the-uk-in-june.aspx/
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Archie747 said:
Somebody has already posted https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/possible-nikon-price-increases.678390/

But no harm in another post. It looks like we are in for several years of price increases.
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snerkler said:
Another one? :mad: What are they trying to do make it so the average joe can’t afgird their lenses :confused: No wonder people buy grey :rolleyes:
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soupdragon said:
Us poor canon shooters have suffered the same in the past year or so.
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Nothing to do with the fall in value of the pound due to Brexit?
 
snerkler said:
Another one? :mad: What are they trying to do make it so the average joe can’t afgird their lenses :confused: No wonder people buy grey :rolleyes:
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grey or not I think nikon will get their cut so they probably don't care. tax man on the other hand...
 
Now that the pound is back up at the level it was just prior to Brexit they should be (if anything) reducing the prices.

Just as well Nikon have nothing in their current inventory that remotely interests me.
 
stuartm1 said:
Now that the pound is back up at the level it was just prior to Brexit they should be (if anything) reducing the prices.
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Technically that would depend on what currency you're converting from, if it's Euros then we're still quite a ways from the level prior to the referendum but it has been relatively stable for the past year (so it's probably unrelated).

I don't understand the goal behind this news (assuming it's correct) it sounds like Nikon will be giving a worse deal to smaller retailers, aren't those the companies they should be trying to embrace? Much better to have loyal shops pushing your brand than relying on the largest companies who sell every brand. Higher prices just mean more people going the grey import route and that surely can't be what Nikon wants.
 
I will bet it is down to falling sales of compact and entry level dslrs, and maybe problems in their other business sectors.

It is funny how they would never reduce their prices no matter what.
 
Nikon seems to have turned a corner on the profit front - some good news for once.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/29535...50-sales-lead-to-8x-increase-in-annual-profit

The trend in recent years has been heavily declining camera sales across the board, and from that it follows that prices will rise. But I wonder, given that Canon has also hiked prices recently, if they're both preparing the ground for mirrorless?
 
Tom Green said:
That is literally just a terrible excuse companies have been using to fleece us for more money. Apple are another example.
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Well excuse is valid to some extent, the value of GBP has indeed dropped against USD which would lead to increase in prices on imported goods (which is pretty much everything for this country :p )

My company even gave a higher increase in salary to everyone because of higher inflation. But not everyone is lucky to get that :(
 
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Tom Green said:
That is literally just a terrible excuse companies have been using to fleece us for more money. Apple are another example.
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Not an excuse at all it's a fact. I import cars from Japan and on the night of the brexit result the cost of buying YEN to pay for them increased by around 18% due to the pound plummeting, it has taken all this time recover and is still 6% off what it was trading at just before brexit.
 
nandbytes said:
Well excuse is valid to some extent, the value of GBP has indeed dropped against USD which would lead to increase in prices on imported goods (which is pretty much everything for this country :p )

My company even gave a higher increase in salary to everyone because of higher inflation. But not everyone is lucky to get that :(
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I should have perhaps explained more than my little rant :D

Whilst that is true, we have recovered 'slightly' whilst the retailers haven't and won't reduce their prices. The way I see it, companies like Apple have seen it as an opportunity and just capitalised on it, knowing that the vast majority of people don't have a clue about economics. Whilst a weak pound will have made imports dearer, it's not likely permanent, whereas the increases are. The margins some of these companies make, they 'could' swallow it and still make a massive profit. Obviously, inflation happens and that's just a thing.

Good company by the sounds of it. As a teacher I just get what I'm given :LOL:
 
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imattersuk said:
Not an excuse at all it's a fact. I import cars from Japan and on the night of the brexit result the cost of buying YEN to pay for them increased by around 18% due to the pound plummeting, it has taken all this time recover and is still 6% off what it was trading at just before brexit.
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Have you reduced your prices?:)

I wasn't talking about the man on the street, I was talking about the big businesses.
 
Tom Green said:
I should have perhaps explained more than my little rant :D

Whilst that is true, we have recovered 'slightly' whilst the retailers haven't and won't reduce their prices. The way I see it, companies like Apple have seen it as an opportunity and just capitalised on it, knowing that the vast majority of people don't have a clue about economics. Whilst a weak pound will have made imports dearer, it's not likely permanent, whereas the increases are. The margins some of these companies make, they 'could' swallow it and still make a massive profit.

Good company by the sounds of it. As a teacher I just get what I'm given :LOL:
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Actually we have recovered more than just slightly and no manufacturers haven't adjusted their prices in the slightest! You might have noticed me swearing about it on the Sony thread at A7III launch :mad:

Yeah civil servants get the short end of the stick. Both my parents are civil servants. It is kinda bad because if there is one place that should be fair in terms of inflation and raises it should be the government!!
 
LongLensPhotography said:
I will bet it is down to falling sales of compact and entry level dslrs, and maybe problems in their other business sectors.

It is funny how they would never reduce their prices no matter what.
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Yeah absolutely. As cameras that aren't on a phone become niche, prices rise.
I bet Nikon (with their brand history) are looking long and hard at the Leica business model
 
The Sterling / Yen exchange rate is the only one that matters as far as camera equipment is concerned. I've had a professional interest in it for the last 10 years, and in that time it's been all over the place.

upload_2018-5-17_10-11-31.png

On the day after the Brexit vote, the rate fell from 158 to 140 (a drop of 11%), and then in the next two weeks it fell further to 130. That's a drop of 18% from its level immediately before the referendum. However, it had been on a bit of an increase immediately before the referendum; a week earlier it had been only 148. Compared to that, the drop was only 12%. The rate is currently 150 so it's now higher than it was a week before the referendum.

As you can see, these are actually not particularly large swings when you loo at the big picture. Goodness knows what happened in 2008!
 
StewartR said:
The Sterling / Yen exchange rate is the only one that matters as far as camera equipment is concerned. I've had a professional interest in it for the last 10 years, and in that time it's been all over the place.

View attachment 126674

On the day after the Brexit vote, the rate fell from 158 to 140 (a drop of 11%), and then in the next two weeks it fell further to 130. That's a drop of 18% from its level immediately before the referendum. However, it had been on a bit of an increase immediately before the referendum; a week earlier it had been only 148. Compared to that, the drop was only 12%. The rate is currently 150 so it's now higher than it was a week before the referendum.

As you can see, these are actually not particularly large swings when you loo at the big picture. Goodness knows what happened in 2008!
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2008? Around when Lehman brothers went bust and the mortgage market in the US almost collapsed and the US government had to bail out one of the largest insurer company.
 
StewartR said:
The Sterling / Yen exchange rate is the only one that matters... <snip>
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The Sterling/Yen exchange rate is the one that's always quoted when prices go up, but it's not the only one that matters.

Manufacturers with wholly-owned international subsidiaries, eg Canon and Nikon UK that only exist to optimise profits for the parent company, are known to transfer stock from one county to another if there's a net benefit. Say from Yen to USD to Euro to Sterling. They're just paper transactions, no goods actually move anywhere except to the final destination.
 
Raymond Lin said:
2008? Around when Lehman brothers went bust and the mortgage market in the US almost collapsed and the US government had to bail out one of the largest insurer company.
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Sure, but why did all that affect the Sterling / Yen exchange rate?
 
StewartR said:
Sure, but why did all that affect the Sterling / Yen exchange rate?
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Potentially many reasons - the entire US financial market was propped up on completely garbage mortgage bonds which failed in 2007 & 2008. Because so much of global finance is tied together through borrowing, the collapse of the US housing market had a direct impact on the US economy, and subsequently the global economy. Different levels of exposure (either directly through assets or indirectly through availablility of credit) are most likely the reason for the GBP <> Yen exchange rate collapse during the crisis...but ultimately when the entire world economy hits the fan, everything rebalances.
 
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You have to remember, if goods are selling at the higher prices, why would you reduce them from a profit / business sense?
Supply and demand.
 
Riz_Guru said:
You have to remember, if goods are selling at the higher prices, why would you reduce them from a profit / business sense?
Supply and demand.
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it shouldn't always be about money, there are things like ethics and morals and all that jazz...
in long run being greedy won't work out well IMO
but then what do I know I don't run an serious businesses :P
 
nandbytes said:
it shouldn't always be about money, there are things like ethics and morals and all that jazz...
in long run being greedy won't work out well IMO
but then what do I know I don't run an serious businesses :p
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But business is all about money. That's all shareholders care about - and we're all shareholders, eg pensions, one way or another.

There's that Northernism "where there's muck, there's brass" and the reverse is also true. Unfortunately.
 
Riz_Guru said:
You have to remember, if goods are selling at the higher prices, why would you reduce them from a profit / business sense?
Supply and demand.
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To increase the number of sales; regardless of how good your product is once you get up to a certain point you exclude a big chunk of the market and for the rest you're constrained by the competition as you can't ask 50% more than say Canon without offering a valid reason for that price difference (more features, better implementation etc).

It's a bold choice to greatly increase prices just when we're getting a slew of new and impressive cameras being released across several brands but maybe they saw the mark up Sony charged on the A73 in the UK and wanted their pound of flesh too.
 
Maybe Nikon are trying to rinse what they can from what is mainly now products where the development costs have been accounted for. I'd be intrigued to know how many genuinely new adopters there are to DSLRs now, I would guess profit is mainly going to be driven by people already invested in the system. A captive audience will accept price rises.

Presumably Canon and Nikon are gearing up for the fundamental change to their camera business (mirrorless) in the next 2 years, something that even for established companies such as those is going to cost a few quid.
 
simonbarker said:
It's a bold choice to greatly increase prices just when we're getting a slew of new and impressive cameras being released across several brands but maybe they saw the mark up Sony charged on the A73 in the UK and wanted their pound of flesh too.
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But the Sony A7 III is cheaper and better than anything Nikon and Canon offer in its respective segment. Nikon pushing prices up will only make the Sony A7 III a even bigger bargain than it already is.

As mentioned above, these big companies are in it to make money..... if I was on the board of directors I would be putting up prices for max profits, but equally its about getting that fine balance where you still have customers! lol
 
HoppyUK said:
But business is all about money. That's all shareholders care about - and we're all shareholders, eg pensions, one way or another.

There's that Northernism "where there's muck, there's brass" and the reverse is also true. Unfortunately.
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I never said if it was or wasn't. I simply said it shouldn't be all about money.
 
Riz_Guru said:
But the Sony A7 III is cheaper and better than anything Nikon and Canon offer in its respective segment. Nikon pushing prices up will only make the Sony A7 III a even bigger bargain than it already is.
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The Sony A73 is only one product, for its market segment I think it's incredible value but how many sales do you think it's taking away from Nikon's top and bottom end?

It could be as Chris says that they're trying to increase what they get from their (currently) captive market without having to increase production levels as a price increase reduces total sales but helps profit per sale, that could be because they're ramping up for mirrorless, they want to make the company appear more profitable, maybe they expect further currency devaluations or maybe they're just greedy?

I really don't know but I assume it's a medium term business decision rather than an opportunistic one.
 
nandbytes said:
Actually we have recovered more than just slightly and no manufacturers haven't adjusted their prices in the slightest! You might have noticed me swearing about it on the Sony thread at A7III launch :mad:

Yeah civil servants get the short end of the stick. Both my parents are civil servants. It is kinda bad because if there is one place that should be fair in terms of inflation and raises it should be the government!!
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Well yeah I suppose that depends how you look at it and against which currency you look at as well against which period of time.

Haha yeah, I don’t let it bother me because I am still climbing the pay scale so get an increase each year anyway!
 
HoppyUK said:
Manufacturers with wholly-owned international subsidiaries, eg Canon and Nikon UK that only exist to optimise profits for the parent company, are known to transfer stock from one county to another if there's a net benefit. Say from Yen to USD to Euro to Sterling. They're just paper transactions, no goods actually move anywhere except to the final destination.
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That's interesting. How might it benefit the manufacturers, and how might it affect UK retail prices?
 
StewartR said:
That's interesting. How might it benefit the manufacturers, and how might it affect UK retail prices?
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I'm just making the point that with international businesses trading in a global market, the Yen/Sterling exchange rate isn't the whole story, even if the underlying strength of the Yen is the key factor.
 
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