Nikon Rebate Program on Now – But not in Canada

Its always makes every Nikon photographer, whether professional or amateur, stand up and pay attention when they hear the unfamiliar words from Nikon….”Rebate”

Well don’t get overly excited if you live here in Canada, because that magical word doesn’t mean much for consumers here north of the 49th. Nikon has offered rebates around the world, but as far as North America is concerned it’s only available in the USA.

Nikon is offering rebates up to $400 dollars on body and lens combinations until the end of March 2010. Now seeing that the US is approximately 1/3rd of Nikons overall sales, it’s not a really big surprise that these rebates are being offered in the USA. Now as mentioned already, all of these rebates are based on the purchase of a Body and lens, but Nikon hasn’t put any restrictions on what body you must purchase with your lens.

Now seeing Nikon didn’t impress anyone at PMA 2010 with announcements of new DSLR’s or major changes and additions to their Lens line-up, it make sense that they would want to unload some of their products that are coming to the end of their life cycle. As most people know, Nikon Cameras on average are refreshed about every two years, as the D90 is coming up on that mark now, and with no announcements at PMA it makes me wonder what they have in store for the remainder of this year.

With the falling sales numbers for the D3000 and D5000 as compared to there predecessors the D40x and D60 established when they were at the same point in their life cycle.
With sales slowing down on some of the existing camera bodies, Nikon’s market share in a bit of jeopardy, and with no major new announcements at PMA 2010, it seems to me that Nikon is trying to reduce inventory on the shelf collecting dust.
But if this is an attempt to clear inventory at year end, then why make your rebates on Camera and Lens combinations only, why not just rebate bodies and lenses separately, and let the consumer decide what they want to buy for themselves. Nikon has no restrictions on which bodies and lens combination you have to purchase, the only difference is the amount of rebate for the various combinations and models.

Now that the first quarter of the year is coming to an end, and no major announcements or releases of new DSLR Bodies and Lenses at PMA 2010, and nothing new expected to hit the market and ship till near the end of this summer, this brings forward another question, if this is an inventory reduction and sales are weak right now, what is Nikon going to do to fix it and when?
I believe that Nikon will be struggling to meet their first fiscal quarter sales on DSLR’s and with nothing expected to ship till July-September, its seems it will be hard to hold their market share for DSLR with only the D3s and D300s the only new kids on the block.

So this brings me back to the Rebates only in the USA for North America. If Nikon is having issues with sales, and they are trying to keep their market share, then why wouldn’t they offer the Rebates here in Canada as well as the USA?
Nikon Canada has a very poor history of offering rebates and promotions to consumers here in Canada, and it seems we Canadians always seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to any promotions offered by Nikon.
The conversations I have noticed online in various blogs and forums seems to be indicating a growing number of Canadian consumers looking to purchase or upgrade their Nikon Gear are buying or thinking of buying south of the border in the US.
Grey Market concerns aside, most retailers in the USA are more than happy to take our Canadian Money, and even offer to take care of the purchaser if they need warranty support after their purchase.

So my question to Nikon and Nikon Canada is, “What have you done for us Canadians lately!!??” We are loyal Nikon users, we love our Nikon Gear, and we wait with anticipation of the next best thing to come, so why don’t we get to share in the wonderful world of Nikon Rebates? Is our money the wrong color? We would be more than happy to help with your Inventory Clearance efforts, besides our Dollar is worth the same as the US Dollar right now, and our money is much nicer looking than theirs!!

Welcome To My Blog

Thanks to all who visit.
I am in the process of setting up this Blog, and have some some reviews which I will be posting soon. Now these reviews are for anyone, and deal with Nikon Photography Products mostly. I will be reviewing products from 3rd party manufacturers that work with Nikon Products. Now my reviews will be totally non-bias, if a product is good or not I will say so, and I will attempt to keep up with products as they come out and are sent to me for review.

I do have a fair size collection of Nikon Gear and accessories, so I will start with some of the New goodies just released by Nikon in the past couple of Months.

I do not take any funding for reviewing products, as I want to be able totally free to let people know the good and bad products out there.

If you would like a product reviewed, be drop me a message and I will attempt to get it and reviews as soon as my schedule permits.

If a company will not send me a product for review when I ask, I will let you all know. Hard to review products if you can't get them.

Reviews Coming:

Nikon D3s
Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VRII
Nikon 300mm f/2.8 VRII
Nikon TC 2.0 EIII
Lowepro 500AW Special Edition Backpack