"Authorized dealers"

No they did not fall off a truck.


What happens is that an authorized dealer buys more units than they can sell in order to qualify for a quantity discount. They then resell the excess units to "grey market" dealers like NewEgg at or near the discounted wholesale price they got from the manufacturer. Since the grey market retailers have no price-fixing contracts with the manufacturer, they are able to sell at prices barely over their own cost.


The blame almost always lies with the manufacturer, the people who process wholesale orders know their customers. They know when an authorized dealer is buying more stock than they can move, but they let them do it anyway because the manufacturer's own internal incentives reward them for selling as many units as possible. Some manufacturers, like Denon, are real arseholes about it, they will deny warranty coverage if you buy from a grey market retailer. That puts the onus on the customer to enforce the rules that the manufacturer themselves are too sloppy follow.


I'll go out of my way to buy a grey-market unit when the manufacturer uses customer-hostile tricks like denying warranty coverage in order to fix prices. Turn about is always fair play. Factor in the cost of a third party warranty from a company like Square Trade and you still save money compared to paying the "authorized price."

Denon does that for a reason to teach the customer a lesson. Call them Arsholes for doing it but it does protect (us) and the real honest dealer that goes out of the way to represent the product correctly and attends the trainings as requested. Any dealer doing that would not whore out the line just to get in on a special purchase price and risk loosing being a represented dealer by the manufaturer. If so then F em they dont respect the product, the customer and the manufaturer.


A customer buys from gey market to save a few bucks is exactly that but there are known consequences that go along with that that said customers need to be aware of. If they are ok with no support then so be it, have a good time.. More then likely youll never need manufature support if its a well made name brand item, so your problably ok to save a few bucks.


Co's like Denon Marantz and others we deal with are trying to get the point accross to the customer to buy from the authorized dealer. If they dont its hard to know really where those grey's got it from. Be it if it really did come from a shady authorized dealer unloading products. Those guys buying more then they can chew are already screwed up companies and its problably a matter of time before they are gone.