MarcM wrote: Quote:
Hi HarjTT
Most of the online pricing that I have found is in Japanese and difficult to comprehend the whole story (i.e. consumption taxes and earned points). The limited on-line pricing that I have seen is not much differentthan the better US on-line pricing. I am wondering whether an in person negotiated price is significantly better than what is posted on-line by some of the major camera/electronic stores.
Thanks for your response.
Without a knowledge of Japanese, you're going to be in some trouble, and you certainly won't want to do any buying outside the major discount retailers like Yodobashi and Bic. In addition, these stores don't negotiate much, so don't count on getting a substantially better price in person. The current
Yodobashi price for the Oly 50-200 is ￥104,700, which is equivalent to about USD $872.50. On top of that, if you register at time of sale for a Yodobashi point card, you'll get an additional 10% in points (about $87.25). That makes the total price about $785.
You can't apply the points to the current lens purchase, but you can turn around and go elsewhere in the store and use the points to buy something else.
The above price obviously depends on the day-to-day exchange rate, so it could go up or down.
（FWIW, the price and points are identical at Bic Camera).
On the other hand, the internet mail-order clearing house site
Kakaku.com
has the 50-200 listed for ￥89,368 (= USD $744.73) at a place called PC Bomber. This would involve ordering and delivery within Japan, with some extra fees for shipping and COD, and the hassle and anxiety probably won't be worth the few extra bucks saved--and once again you have to know Japanese to do it.
