Bike Cost - Ripoff?

Tri-Newbie

Hey,
I'm just getting into cycling for Triathlon and went to my local bike shop to see what I might buy and get measured up for fit etc. The guy there was pretty sound and gave me loads of time and advice. Afterwards, I went online to look for the bike he reccommended (€1200) and found it was €500 cheaper including delivery from the UK.
I really want to support my local bike shop and have the guy available for advice and repairs as I know almost nothing about bikes but €500 seems like quite a premium to pay for this kind of service.

Anyone any thoughts on this, i'd really appreciate it.

Tackleberry

Tri-Newbie wrote: »

Hey,
I'm just getting into cycling for Triathlon and went to my local bike shop to see what I might buy and get measured up for fit etc. The guy there was pretty sound and gave me loads of time and advice. Afterwards, I went online to look for the bike he reccommended (€1200) and found it was €500 cheaper including delivery from the UK.
I really want to support my local bike shop and have the guy available for advice and repairs as I know almost nothing about bikes but €500 seems like quite a premium to pay for this kind of service.

Anyone any thoughts on this, i'd really appreciate it.

I've always found that too - bike shops are far too expensive here - obviously they have high costs etc but as far as I'm concerned they are only really good for small purchases such as clothing, spare parts etc, and servicing the bike. Anything over a few hundred quid and I'd always go online and save hundreds if not thousands. Obviously you run the risk of the bike not quite fitting you right, but if you're very methodical as to what size equipment you need then there's no reason to worry.

I'm the same - I'd like to support them, and think the Cyclesuperstore for example is very good and they're very helpful, but jesus they charge an arm and a leg. I think the only good deals you can get on bikes in these shops are on 2nd hand or special offers - but if you want a flash new bike it'll always cost less online.

Lumen

The "higher costs from running a shop" argument is somewhat eroded by the fact that you can buy over the phone from a UK LBS at much lower cost than an Irish LBS.

VAT differential accounts for a few percent, as does the weakening pound.

seamus

I think Irish bicycle retailers suffer from much the same problem as motorcycle retailers - low customer volumes. UK shops have always been cheaper. Even way back before the real boom time, I can remember seeing UK prices in magazines and wondering how in God's name they were still cheaper.

I think it's purely down to the volume of sales. The UK's population is 15 times the size of ours and all forms of cycling, MTB and BMX in particular, appear to be much more popular over there than here.

So if a UK shop can sell 30 of one particular model in a year whereas the Irish guy might only sell 5, then the UK guy will get a keener price on his order, and can also afford to sell each one cheaper.

tomc

Anybody recommend any good online shops in the UK which we can use for comparison?

Thanks
TomC

Chips Lovell

I think Irish shop owners are always going to be on a hiding to nothing. We're a small, peripheral market. Distribution costs are gonig to be higher. Chances are stuff is shipped initially to the UK and then sent on to Ireland from there. Everyone in that supply chain will need a cut. Not only this, but we've a smaller population, which means shipments will be relatively small and costs then have to be recovered acorss a smaller quanitity of goods than in the UK.

That's not to say that there aren't rip off merchants out there. There's one shop in particular in Dublin I can think of who charge far more than their rivals and I can't really see the reasoning behind it.

Having said that, €500 sounds like an awful lot, even taking into account everything.

The only advantage shop owners have is that they can offer advice on fitting, give you the chance to ride the bike before buying and provide some sort of after sales service. It's up to you to decide what that's worth to you and even then it can be a bit of a lottery as most of the people you find working in bike shops are BS artists.

Trojan

el tonto wrote: »

That's not to say that there aren't rip off merchants out there. There's one shop in particular in Dublin I can think of who charge far more than their rivals and I can't really see the reasoning behind it.

To pay for their tv advertising?

Lumen

tomc wrote: »

Anybody recommend any good online shops in the UK which we can use for comparison?

http://www.cyclesuperstore.ie/shop/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=35&idproduct=18159
€999

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/Cycle/7/Giant_SCR_15_Road_Bike/5360037569/
£550 = €693

That's 44% more expensive.

"Cycle Superstore is Irelands biggest cycle store based in Dublin just 14km from the city centre"

So the economies of scale excuse is out, as is the one about city centre rents.

seamus

Lumen wrote: »

So the economies of scale excuse is out

How so? Wiggle is a distributor for all intents and purposes. Their sales no doubt massively outstrips that of the superstore. They also don't have a walk-in shop (as far as I can tell). That changes costs dramatically.

Stark

I think the Bike to Work scheme in the UK also helps UK bike stores to sell much greater volumes of bicycles.

Lumen

seamus wrote: »

How so? Wiggle is a distributor for all intents and purposes. Their sales no doubt massively outstrips that of the superstore. They also don't have a walk-in shop (as far as I can tell). That changes costs dramatically.

Fair point. It's also often difficult to compare prices since different places stock different brands.

Still, 44% is a lot.

eta: I don't have a LBS (unless you include Halfords) - they seem a bit thin on the ground in D15. Maybe if had one round the corner I'd be more inclined to buy a bike from there.

Trojan

Another factor is charging what the market will bear, potentially increasing per unit price/profit.

seamus

As a very loose experiment, I tried to compare numbers in Dublin and London.

I did a search for bike shops on goldenpages.ie and on yell.com. I came up with figures of 207 bike shops in London and 82 bike shops in Dublin. The population of London is 7,512,400, which gives a figure of 36,291 people per shop.

Dublin's population is 1,186,821, which gives a more modest 14,473 people per shop.

Very, very rough comparison, but it gives an idea of the scale of things.

DirkVoodoo

44% is pretty scandalous all right and I doubt that is tied up in overhead, it seems like blatant profiteering.

I was looking at a Trek 7.0 Hybrid for my brother. Its about €350 from evanscycles and €400 in Joe Dalys, a mark up of about 15% which seems fairly reasonable in my book.

I think I am also feeling a bit guilty about shunting them last time and buying a bike from wiggle.

It's definitely important to support your LBS, but not in a blind faith kind of way. Let them know just how their prices compare and see if they react positively. If not, then fair is fair and buy it from somewhere else.

Trojan

seamus wrote: »

I did a search for bike shops on goldenpages.ie and on yell.com. I came up with figures of 207 bike shops in London and 82 bike shops in Dublin.

Good attempt at quantifying.

Have to admit I'd have guessed at 1/2 that number of shops in Dublin.

Ghost Rider

I don't think the peripheral market argument holds water. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I don't see how it could cost MORE for a dealer to buy several bikes and have them delivered here from the UK than it does for an individual to buy a single bike from a UK bike shop and have that delivered here. If anything, it should be cheaper for the Irish LBS to buy from the UK than it is for an Irish individual, no?

el tonto wrote: »

I think Irish shop owners are always going to be on a hiding to nothing. We're a small, peripheral market. Distribution costs are gonig to be higher. Chances are stuff is shipped initially to the UK and then sent on to Ireland from there. Everyone in that supply chain will need a cut. Not only this, but we've a smaller population, which means shipments will be relatively small and costs then have to be recovered acorss a smaller quanitity of goods than in the UK.
.

blorg

It's not just the shops, Wiggle's economies of scale, etc.

RRP in the UK is substantially lower than in Ireland.

You can buy a bike from a local bike shop in Northern Ireland, a far smaller market, for a fraction of what you pay down here. That bike comes from a distributor in Dublin that sets a substantially higher Irish RRP than he sells the bike in the north for.

We are being ripped off, simple as.

DirkVoodoo

I'll grab the pitchforks, you bring the torches....to the LBS!

Tri-Newbie

Thanks for the replies lads. I'll add that the guy in the shop said that the prices he charged were primarily dictated by the manufacturer (he dropped it in while we were chatting).
Can anyone tell me - if I do buy online, is there anywhere I can go to get fitted at a charge? Also, are shops reluctant to service bikes they havn't sold themselves?

Ghost Rider

Very good question and if you find a place that does it, let us know.

Tri-Newbie wrote: »

if I do buy online, is there anywhere I can go to get fitted at a charge?

scottreynolds

Ghost Rider wrote: »

Very good question and if you find a place that does it, let us know.

You can try wheelworx in Clondakin for a fitting or irishfit but check the pricing first

I was in there the other day and mentioned to them that I had bought a bike up North the week before and said they knew the shop I was talking about and that they had great deals.... which is a shame cause as i have said before on this forum by us consumers buying on the internet we really only make the problem worse for everyone.... as even less bikes are going to be sold here..... but hey when its 33% of the total price i know where I would go.

FRom somewhere above the pound exchance rate makes a little difference

Actually since this time last year, when alot of bike prices where set at the manufacturer level the EURO is about 20-30% stronger than the pound .... I know as I get paid in pounds.

Chips Lovell

Ghost Rider wrote: »

I don't think the peripheral market argument holds water. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I don't see how it could cost MORE for a dealer to buy several bikes and have them delivered here from the UK than it does for an individual to buy a single bike from a UK bike shop and have that delivered here. If anything, it should be cheaper for the Irish LBS to buy from the UK than it is for an Irish individual, no?

I could be wrong of course, but I'm operating on the hypothesis that bikes for the UK and Ireland market get shipped to the UK first. Consider the price on arrival as X. Bikes go out to bike shops in the UK and sold for say X+cost of shipping within UK+10%. Bikes go to Irish distributor who then has to ship them to Ireland and get his own markup. He therefore might charge Irish bikeshops X+cost of shipping to Ireland+10%. Bike shops in Ireland then charge another 10% on top of that.

scottreynolds

el tonto wrote: »

I could be wrong of course, but I'm operating on the hypothesis that bikes for the UK and Ireland market get shipped to the UK first. Consider the price on arrival as X. Bikes go out to bike shops in the UK and sold for say X+cost of shipping within UK+10%. Bikes go to Irish distributor who then has to ship them to Ireland and get his own markup. He therefore might charge Irish bikeshops X+cost of shipping to Ireland+10%. Bike shops in Ireland then charge another 10% on top of that.

I think you'll find that it costs up to 40 pounds (way too much) to ship a bike to Ireland from the UK for a single bike but the price differences are way way more than that.

The real answer lies in the distrubutors who set prices for the UK and others for ireland. they do this generally based on historical exchange rates, exchange rates over 5 years, and then add in the cost of servicing a country which Ireland being small and hard to travel round doesn't bode well.

We could go on and on like this for ages but the bottom line will be that unless we are all willing to boycot all bike sales until there's parity we are all screwed.

Trojan

Tri-Newbie wrote: »

Also, are shops reluctant to service bikes they havn't sold themselves?

Some refuse point blank, e.g. Cyclelogical, I think because they're so busy servicing stuff they have sold.

Others outside town (like the 2 on Fairview), love to service anything they can because they stand a chance of turning you into a regular.

Ghost Rider

But bike shops in Ireland don't buy from LBSs in the UK, they buy directly from the distributors (I'd imagine). So why would there be two retail markups?

To use your terminology, a bike shop in Ireland buying directly from a UK distributor should only be charging (per bike) this:

X+cost of shipping to Ireland+10% markup

Whereas an individual in Ireland buying from an LBS in the UK would be expected to pay this:

X+cost of shipping within the UK+10%+cost of shipping to Ireland

So how is it STILL cheaper to buy from the LBS in the UK? On top of that, bear in mind that bike shops buy bikes in bulk from the UK, whereas individuals only buy individual bikes ! That makes it even harder to fathom the price difference.

el tonto wrote: »

I could be wrong of course, but I'm operating on the hypothesis that bikes for the UK and Ireland market get shipped to the UK first. Consider the price on arrival as X. Bikes go out to bike shops in the UK and sold for say X+cost of shipping within UK+10%. Bikes go to Irish distributor who then has to ship them to Ireland and get his own markup. He therefore might charge Irish bikeshops X+cost of shipping to Ireland+10%. Bike shops in Ireland then charge another 10% on top of that.

Chips Lovell

scottreynolds wrote: »

I think you'll find that it costs up to 40 pounds (way too much) to ship a bike to Ireland from the UK for a single bike but the price differences are way way more than that.

The Irish distributor has to get his cut too, which is more on top of that shipping fee. There are lots of variables, but I think having more layers in the supply chain adds to the price.

Chips Lovell

Trojan wrote: »

Some refuse point blank, e.g. Cyclelogical, I think because they're so busy servicing stuff they have sold.

I think it depends on their humour in their. I've had them refuse to work on a wheel of mine because it wasn't bought there. Yet several days previously they fitted a crankset to a friend's Colnago. Neither the crankset nor the Colnago had been purchased from them. I've concluded that "we only work on stuff we've sold" is their way of saying "we don't want to do the job".

DirkVoodoo

Ghost Rider wrote: »

But bike shops in Ireland don't buy from LBSs in the UK, they buy directly from the distributors (I'd imagine). So why would there be two retail markups?

To use your terminology, a bike shop in Ireland buying directly from a UK distributor should only be charging (per bike) this:

X+cost of shipping to Ireland+10% markup

Whereas an individual in Ireland buying from an LBS in the UK would be expected to pay this:

X+cost of shipping within the UK+10%+cost of shipping to Ireland

So how is it STILL cheaper to buy from the LBS in the UK? On top of that, bear in mind that bike shops buy bikes in bulk from the UK, whereas individuals only buy individual bikes ! That makes it even harder to fathom the price difference.

Because an individual is not paying to rent premises, pay electricity bills, pay staff to sell/service bikes. Sorry, should have included cost of living in Ireland, etc.

I'm not saying its right and we do get ripped off, but to draw a direct link between an individual buying from the UK and an irish business isn't entirely realistic.

I do see your point though, and I would quite happily buy a bike online than have to deal with "certain" shops ever again purely because of the service on offer and not the price of the product (I wont name names, some of you know which shop I am referring to)

EDIT: I think also that as people have mentioned, the lower volumes being sold by a bike in Dublin city centre as opposed to london means that a higher markup is inevitable.

blorg

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I'll grab the pitchforks, you bring the torches....to the LBS!

To the distributor more like, I think the LBSes are being screwed as much as we are.

el tonto wrote: »

I could be wrong of course, but I'm operating on the hypothesis that bikes for the UK and Ireland market get shipped to the UK first. Consider the price on arrival as X. Bikes go out to bike shops in the UK and sold for say X+cost of shipping within UK+10%. Bikes go to Irish distributor who then has to ship them to Ireland and get his own markup. He therefore might charge Irish bikeshops X+cost of shipping to Ireland+10%. Bike shops in Ireland then charge another 10% on top of that.

Doesn't hold water. That same distributor in Dublin manages to sell to bike shops in the North for less than he does to the ones down here.

Chips Lovell

blorg wrote: »

Doesn't hold water. That same distributor in Dublin manages to sell to bike shops in the North for less than he does to the ones down here.

I'm not saying that ripping off isn't going on, I'm saying that there is plausible reasons for prices being higher. Whether they apply in all cases is another thing. I'm wondering if the distributor in question has to compete with UK distributors in the North, but has a free hand south of the border?

blorg

Distributor in question (Centro) has the monopoly on Trek and a range of other brands on an all-Island basis. They don't have to compete with another distributor in the North but I couldn't imagine Trek would be happy with a situation where the RRP in NI differed from the rest of the UK. Don't imagine NI consumers would take it well either.

All the other arguments about why bikes are so expensive here (peripheral market, transport costs, etc.) apply equally to NI but price differences from the rest of the UK would not be tolerated.

Trek price differential north and south is an absolute joke. I had two Trek road bikes before and liked them; I would have replaced it with a Madone rather than a Focus but the Irish price was just simply too high.

We are in a single European market, there are no excuses.