Re: Deal: Canon EOS 5DS R Body $2099 (Reg $3699)
sanj said:
Mt Spokane Photography said:
sanj said:
But.. But.. Why would they be sold for a loss when they are current models? With all due respect, something does not sit well here with me.
They are not sold for a loss. The actual cost to make a camera is a fraction of the selling price. Its likely 25% or less. Canon can discount prices to poor countries and still profit, just not as much. There is value in keeping production rates up and having high end cameras even in poor countries where they really want to sell much lower priced cameras in huge quantities but have the nice ones available.
Canon makes the bulk of their profit by selling cameras to rich countries, but wants to sell them everywhere. Grey market sellers take advantage of that when they see a opportunity.
So what I said earlier is perhaps the fact:
Cant imagine anyone selling this for a loss as version 2 is nowhere in the horizon.
So a retailer has 3699-2099=$1600 mark up?? And Canon would perhaps have at least half of that 1600+800=2400.
3699-2400= $1299. Would that be the manufacturing cost of the camera? My math, assumptions wrong where?
But again, which poor country does it sell for 2099$. None.. Cameras are relatively cheap in USA (rich country) compared to the world (except HK, Singapore etc).
I think I agree with your 25% theory....
The Camera can be found for $2300 something commonly, https://www.cpricewatch.com/product/05702/Canon-EOS-5Ds-R-price.html
https://www.cpricewatch.com/product/05702/Canon-EOS-5Ds-R-price.html
The fact that they are readily available on the grey market for this price means that they are indeed available for a low price overseas, the sales price has to include shipping, cost to sell such as credit card fees, returns of defective units, its expensive to sell a camera. So they are paying a lot less than you think.
Of course, you can't buy ONE for that price, but if you buy 2,000 or 3,000 of them, the story changes. The big gray market dealers buy millions of dollars worth of cameras and lenses of all makes, so a dealer only has to make a tiny profit on each unit because he will never see any returns or have other expenses. If he sells 2000 units a month at $1 profit each, its all free and clear and does not impact his local sales. There are all sorts of back channels, it might even involve a large distributor making out fake sales receipts or padding sales figures to local dealers. That sort of thing is common in some countries. The Canon/Nikon/Sigma/whoever distributors don't look too hard for it, because they want the sales for their region.
When a Canon camera is sold to a gray market, the local Canon division makes extra profit because their repair and service depot does not have to deal with repairs, its free money. Canon USA, on the other hand, does service them and it comes out of profits. From what I hear, many of the cameras come out of China. they may pass thru several hands before finding their way to the US, sometimes they have fake serial numbers added to them to disguise where they came from, there was a rash of that happening a few years back.
