Barry_Green
Moderator
Okay, so I found this on a site talking about plasma TVs, but the general concepts all apply to camera dealers or other electronics dealers. This gives a pretty good rundown as to what an "authorized dealer" is, and why you would want to make sure that your vendor is an authorized dealer:
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatv/plasmatv-authorizeddealer.html
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatv/plasmatv-authorizeddealer.html