Gray market, as I'm accustomed to hearing it (here in the US), is used to mean non-"Authorized Resellers". Basically, the whole authorized reseller scam is publicly an attempt to ensure quality control with all of the companies a brand gets associated with on its way to the customer. In practice, it's most often an attempt at price fixing in a not-so-illegal way, "list our product for this price or we'll take away your authorized reseller title and stop selling it to you". So, the so-called gray market vendors either buy the product from an authorized reseller (possibly at a very slight mark-up) and then generally resell at a very thin profit margin (unlike the authorized resellerss) or actually buy it from the manufacturer off the books (generally, with the same thin profit margin). Some times, the reason the gray market vendors are able to pick up the product like they do is because it's being discontinued, but not always.
Yeah, I'm a little bitter about the whole thing
, but I'm a home audio/video junky. All the home audio/video companies are out to overcharge you or take away your warranty for no reason.
Oh, and I just ordered something from Price Point (my crank for my half-of-a-mountain-bike I'm working on completing). Their operators (when I called) were wholly unhelpful, but the price is right. As long as it gets here, I don't care
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