As I am considering taking up photography a little bit more seriously than I have in the past, I thought I would have a look at the cost of the equipment needed.
I got a brochure from "Big camera", went onto their website, and compared it with a coupl of UK sites.

Can someone please tell me why virtually every item costs between 20 and 50% more in Thailand than it does in UK, after all most of the items CANON, NIKON, OLYMPUS etc; come from this part of the world anyway, so I would have expected them to be 20 - 50% CHEAPER not more expensive.

Any advise on what to choose .......... thinking about something like Canon EOS 1000D, and maybe I'll get it on-line from UK, and get someone to bring it over with them.

because the thai baht is over valued plain & simple but no one want to believe me

Remember the days when everone used to ask if you could bring this or that back from Thailand because it was so much cheaper, now we've turned 180deg and are getting farangs that are going home for a few days to bring things over here so as we can save money

I can understand the value of the TB causing a problem for items manufactured here, but when both the UK and Thailand are importing the stuff from "presumably" Japan, surely it is the value of the Yen that would affect the price, and since both countries are paying the same amount of Yen for the product, why are they not charging the same (in real terms).

Last month I did a search for a good/cheap digital camera. Found a review on a Nikon, so priced it on the net, prices came in at $89 to $150 usd.

So was thinking I would buy in states, ship it to my states address, then ship it here. But first I thought I would check locally. So wrote down camera name, and a price in baht (3,500), little less than $100 dollars at that time.

Went to the complex, no one had, but showed the paper to someone at Robertson's, said he could order it, two weeks, said ok, how much, 3490, said ok, order.

As I was paying, he came back to tell me that he would have it in a couple of hours. Returned later and picked it up. Figured I got a good price, and maybe the paper helped.

I am surprised at the high cost of cameras here. Nikon is made in Ayuthaya--they have some big factories there. I just put it down to the high baht and the yen. Remember that Toyota is running in the red due to the yen...Nikon has recently laid off all their contract workers and keeping only a bare bones permanent staff due to the economic bad times and the workers were complaining bitterly. The story i saw said that Nikon sales had collapsed. As for a Nikon take a look at the D90 or D80 both are great cameras. the D80 may be at the end of its life cycle in electronics but its still a great camera and may be available at a lower price. Take a look at the www.nikonians.com ---Nikon owners are in league of their own as knowledgeable users and critics... also take care to check the warranty where ever you purchase a camera---some makers warranties are only good in the country of purchase and not world wide

canuck-viking wrote:I am surprised at the high cost of cameras here. Nikon is made in Ayuthaya--they have some big factories there. I just put it down to the high baht and the yen. Remember that Toyota is running in the red due to the yen...Nikon has recently laid off all their contract workers and keeping only a bare bones permanent staff due to the economic bad times and the workers were complaining bitterly. The story i saw said that Nikon sales had collapsed. As for a Nikon take a look at the D90 or D80 both are great cameras. the D80 may be at the end of its life cycle in electronics but its still a great camera and may be available at a lower price. Take a look at the http://www.nikonians.com ---Nikon owners are in league of their own as knowledgeable users and critics... also take care to check the warranty where ever you purchase a camera---some makers warranties are only good in the country of purchase and not world wide

Thanks CV, I hadn't thought about the warranty, and I'll check out the Nikons

The high price is due family importation business - just as it used to be the case in USA (until price fixing laws were established 60 years ago). You can get a much lower price on the gray market with the guarantee from seller rather than the "official distributor". Two Bangkok sources are:
www.pix-one.com
www.digital2home.com

When two prices are indicated the lower one will be for camera with local guarantee (unofficial import).