Originally posted by Paul the Sunman There are dangers though. Are warranties honoured? Would an item have to be returned to the US for warranty repair? How fast and reliable is international shipping in the COVID age?
So, are any Australians buying from the US these days? Have you had any difficulties, especially with warranty? Are the savings worth the extra concerns?
No chance that CRK will provide warranty on a US purchase I think. Yes, I expect you'd have to send it to the US.
I buy plenty of items from oseas...most often US, China, and UK. The shipping varies dramatically, but mostly it seems to be a couple of weeks. Can sometimes be less than a week, sometimes a month. For example, I ordered a levelling bowl adaptor from Amazon UK on the 19th, and it arrived today only six days later.
I ordered a 75mm bowl from Digidirect at the same time, and they take several days to even figure out that they don't have it in stock.
Last Pentax item I ordered from Oseas was a grip for my K-1 from B&H. From memory it arrived in good time. They had it in stock, and had a much better price at the time than anywhere else. I don't expect warranty service on it of course. My K-1 on the other hand was direct from CRK, as were my latest lens purchases. Had the prices been significantly cheaper oseas (well about 10% I think) then I might have chosen to import, but CRK had the best prices around at the time.
I have gas for the 70-200 star lens and also the 85 1.4, but I think I'll be waiting for either lower new prices, or good used examples.