However, at the same time, because the manufacturers give pretty steep discounts for buying large quantities of their products, many retailers will buy more products than they can sell (enough to get the discount) and then sell their "excess" to other stores. The "authorized" retailer will sell their product at MSRP and have a larger profit margin than they otherwise would have and the "gray market" retailer will sell the product at a discount.

What happens is, if you buy from the "gray market" retailer, you will be buying it without a warranty. If it breaks, and you bring it to an authorized repair center, they won't honor the warranty because you don't have a receipt from an authorized retailer.

So, if you are going to buy from a non-authorized retailer, you need to make sure that:
A) they will take it back and replace it with a new one if it fails in the first 30 days either
B) The store that you buy it from has a good in-house warranty or
C) the price that you are buying it for is a large enough savings that it outweighs the loss of a warranty.

I saved over $500 on the cost of my receiver by purchasing it from a non-authorized retailer. Since I could return it for replacement in the first 30 days (when the vast majority of problems with electronics occur), the $500 savings greatly outweighed what I felt a warranty was worth.

Edited by - Bill on 9/4/2004 10:09:54 AM

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