Its a damn good article, i read it myself this morning.. We have seen a decline here in NZ, but we are also lucky here in NZ that unlike the U.S. where sale taxes are a State thing, our Sales Tax aka GST is a central govt policy and not left up to provincial regions to decide how much sales tax to apply so people will shop inter state in the USA to save 2-5% on taxes alone.
It is true many specialist shops here in NZ are/have closed, but like the US where many put so much of their reliance on film processing and not the actual hardware they are the ones that are closing faster, because a roll of 36exp film to do a 1hr process on had pretty damn good markups.
I don't think we will see the big brands disappear from NZ, as we have a pretty robust group of companies who are in NZ, Canon control their camera distribution themselves, Olympus are also the same, they control the distributor here in NZ, Nikon use a long standing NZ company, and Sony/Panasonic look after their own distribution. Most of the major companies now have regionalized warranty systems in place. When i first started in retail photographics, it was weird to see a regional warranty card, now its the other way around, to see a global warranty is a bit special. The camera companies started introducing the regional warranties as a way to combat grey imports. Canon for example, if you were to send a grey imported camera to their service center in Akl, the last time i checked, their service charge on a grey market warranty claim was $175+ GST an hour! Canon do this, as several years ago, with the EOS350D model, they found out of 12 Grey market cameras bought in stores, and online in NZ, nearly 80% of the cameras were not genuine Canon cameras or refurbished cameras being sold as new.
Pentax I believe is one of the few optical companies still offering a global warranty, but here in NZ, if the camera is a grey market camera, it will be serviced, but a service fee will be applied as the Pentax service center have to verify the authenticity of the camera.
Sure places like B&H in NY will ship nearly anything here to NZ, but the big thing to remember, is by buying local, from proper photo stores, you will get advice, proper after sales care. Here at southern cameras, if you by a DSLR or Mirrorless camera off us, we will do up to 2 sensor cleans a year for FREE, do firmware updates for free for 2 years, and help out with any problems, when you come back no matter how long ago it was you bought the camera and you will get proper NZ approved warranties, and not have to pay courier fees to send anything back to have a warranty claim on.
Also, if you actually look at most pricing these days, NZ is actually pretty competitive with global prices. The Pentax KP, B&H have the body only listed for $1099, + $47 odd to ship it, which works out to be around the $1650 mark in NZD, but when you add the $295 in GST AND Customs import fees, it works out around $1950, which honestly, i can match and probably beat (i will have to look on Monday when i am back in store) So why would you piss around trying to import a camera then have it go wrong and have to send it back to the US or Aus to get serviced? (I know some here do not like the NZ Pentax wholesaler)
