eBay Seller Warranty on Hong Kong Products – Experience/Feedback?

LMeije on 14/08/2017 - 23:32
Last edited 15/08/2017 - 09:41 by 1 other user

Hi guys,

I was in the market to buy a new camera and noticed that many eBay shop sell models from HK for a (sometimes much) cheaper price. Where it gets complicated is that these obviously don’t come with the standard manufacturer warranty.

However some stores advertise a 1 year warranty that they will honour warranty themselves (I reached out to buymobileau and mymobile_store for example and they respectively mentioned an "Australian-based warranty" and a "Local warranty that is serviced in our Brisbane repair centre")

I’m leaning toward paying a higher price for the AU stock warranty (especially with 20% coupon the difference might just come down to $100-150)

What do you guys think? Does anybody have experience using these seller’s warranty?

Cheers,

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  dizzle on 15/08/2017 - 00:00

  +2

  There are two ways to look at grey imports.

  Some shops (even with a .com.au address) are not covered by ACL, so even if they offer internal warranty, they don't have to cover it and if they get caught they just close down the website and move to another - Ie Boombeats.com.au that was shut down and I believe moved to android enjoyed. There are many reports of selling fake gear. Even if they agree to receive it back, they can turn around and say it's not a warranty issue and there's no-one to complain to.

  The other stores are like Kogan - They sell overseas stock under australian laws (yes they also sell au stock sometimes), and ACL says they have to cover the warranty even though the manufacturer does not. This may mean that they use non standard items (evidenced by replacing power packs with local power adaptors) and they would likely do that with repairs too, so replacement parts are likely sub-par. It could be the difference between sending an TV back to Samsung for repairs or sending to your local hole in the wall kiosk. If you have an issue with how they deal with a faulty item, you do have avenues you can go through to rectify.

  For small items like adaptors and cases I don't mind buying overseas stock, but I wouldn't buy a camera/TV/Computer without the local warranty.

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  The tiger on 15/08/2017 - 09:07

  Agreed fully with the advice by Dizzle. If I were you I won't buy expensive things like camera from those stores from Hong Kong or China at eBay . They will give you tons of excuses for your complaints . Don't blame them as their culture of making business is entirely different from OZ. They never believe " refund" or " replacement" in their sense as what we know here.Pleae be beware of the consequence ..Oh yes , Kogan is good and reliable . They are a listed company here now. I have a lot of good experiences with Kogan. However their prices seem more expensive.

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  cwongtech on 15/08/2017 - 12:14

  Great post by dizzle.

  Either get a product with intl warranty, or consider the likelihood of you needing to exercise the warranty.
  For me there are a few parts to the price of a product.
  Aus product includes, gst (10%), the product and the aus warranty.
  Grey import includes the product, and the store warranty usually.

  If the item is made extremely well then warranty doesn't matter/likelihood of failure is low, then I'd go grey import if the price difference is huge (sometimes you can almost buy two grey imports for the price of one local stock variant!)

  The price difference between local and grey import, I call the GST + local warranty premium.
  GST I allow for 10%, but the rest is payment for warranty, assuming the grey import and local stock are identical.

  Usually I allow 10% for warranty.
  For me it highly depends on the item.

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  tonyjzx on 15/08/2017 - 12:36

  You are essentially gambling. eg. I bought a Nikon SLR that was at the $1k end and a f2.8 lens.

  They came out of a HK company (essentially DWI Citiwide eglobal).

  I gambled on the fact that Nikon gear is solid. And so it lasted the 1-2yr warranty and still works fine.

  IMO your choice is enough something like JB or HN that is 50% more expensive or worse and their low standards of warranty up against the 'better' HK companies.

  I would also look at it like this… would you buy a LG G4 what with bootloop? no.

  Would I possibly buy another SLR body from Nikon Canon from say Kogan? yeah probably, maybe even the DWIs of the world.