Parallel Importing In NZ

In New Zealand the market is open. You can source new product anywhere, providing it meets all  regulatory standards. This includes cars and it's called parallel importing. A company started importing new Jaguar cars not long back. I am unsure if they still do, but it wasn't illegal. They have to make sure they are serviced and that wasn't an issue in this case, as they already serviced second hand Jaguars anyway.

2Cheap Cars now moving into  'new' imports

New cars are dearer than they should be in New Zealand. The argument is we are a small nation and cannot get the buying power. Well, the importer for Australia is often the same as NZ so they buy as one anyway. Either way, the bottom line is Kiwis have to pay whatever is the price. What else can you do?

Now a company that has been importing used cars on a large scale wants to do the same for new cars. It has really upset the official importer's association and no doubt rattled a few gin 'n tonics at various car importers HQs. Sliding off the pigs back is never an easy journey.

The cars will be obtained from dealers in Japan, happy to offload excess stock. If unregistered, then it could be classified as a new car. If preregistered in Japan by the dealer, it would surely then have to be called a used import. Because of the uncertain supply of any given model, what is available will be variable. It would be of interest to me if a full warranty is guaranteed.

Summary: This attempt to take on the existing new car importing industry in NZ will be a challenge. Pulling it off will take some doing. The company involved seems to have good connections in Japan and also the finance behind them to execute it. The thing is, will the car industry in Japan close ranks and stifle supply? Time will tell.

For more on the subject, just click here. Some interesting comment below the article too.

The importer that will be behind it is found here.