Re: Ebay (Was Re: Selecting vendors)

[Travis Hartnett <tiktok@sprintmail.com>]

>I think the warranty issue with Gray Market goods is that you would have 
>to 
>send it to the country of orgin (in this case Japan) if you ever wanted 
>or 
>needed repairs.  

>So what happens if you buy a piece of gear in say the US and move to 
>another 
>country and it malfunctions?  Do reps in that country call it gray market 
>and 
>refuse to deal with you again?  That wouldn't really make sense would it?

Oh it makes sense, it's just not appealing if you're from the US, used to 
being at seemingly the center of the universe and faced with a broken 
piece of gear far from home.  Then it's a bit of an issue.

When I used to work for Apple Computer, there were several products sold 
only in various non-US markets (localised OS, double-byte character 
printers, various monitors).  People who called up wanting service or 
support were firmly referred to the originating market, who had the 
budget, parts and training for those repairs.  It's possible that in this 
case (the Motif service issue), that it's only budget holding them back, 
but budget is still a big issue.

In the future, maybe all this will be different and more user-friendly, as 
the world turns into one big market.


TravisH