Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

tomasrojo

Tombo2001 wrote: »

TBH - another issue at present is bike availability - they cant be had.

I've heard other people saying this too. Increasing the incentives for bike theft too, I've heard.

tomasrojo

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

It's so petty of people to start demanding cyclists wear helmets when they couldn't care less about cyclists' safety

Reminds me of this I saw the other day:
https://twitter.com/ianwalker/status/1344930000496173057

MojoMaker

Tombo2001 wrote: »

The bike shops give up quite a bit of margin on these bikes to the voucher companies. What exactly do the voucher companies do? I am not clear on this part.

I'm not sure the retailer gives up anything - they love the voucher companies. The broking fee comes off the consumer's end I'm nearly sure.

Laziness on the employer's side makes it viable for the voucher crew to step in, but in reality there is very little an employer has to do other than alter the payroll to accommodate the salary sacrifice - and not in all cases.

Stark

Paid for a bike in Wheelworx with a https://www.bikes4work.ie/ scheme voucher a few years back. Rob's face pretty much sank when I handed it over, apparently they charge a 13% commission which the bike shop owner is supposed to take the hit on. Policy since has been not to offer discounted bikes on the bike2work scheme. Commission probably isn't as bad with other schemes, that particular one is run by One4All who are generally money grabbing ****s imo. Not sure what the commission is on cyclescheme.ie but Expert Cycles recommend them so presume it's not too extortionate.

Grassey

MojoMaker wrote: »

I'm not sure the retailer gives up anything - they love the voucher companies. The broking fee comes off the consumer's end I'm nearly sure.

/QUOTE]

I remember talking to a bike shop a while back re one of these vouchers, and they said that they are hit with 10% of redemption on the vouchers. And then voucher company also cream the same off the other side for providing the voucher to the ER.

Seth Brundle

When I bought my Orbea via bike2work (as insisted by my employer) the shop told me straight out that I'd get no discount because of the roughly 20% markup B2W charge the retailer.

IIRC I was also told by my LBS in the past that paying via One4All vouchers meant they incurred a charge by One4All - anyone able to confirm?
EDIT: Grassey's post above kinda confirms this.

Wildly Boaring

Yep.
I had the same reaction down in Edge in Cork.
No discount in BTW as was through one of those voucher companies.
10% charge

MojoMaker

Bought a bike in B2R and the voucher was only good for 90% of the value, sounds like B2R took a hit on their side too?

Couldn't sell it to me fast enough though, and no moaning at all - seemed delighted when I presented it.

Type 17

When you use a €1,000 voucher in a bike shop, the shop redeems the voucher, but only receives only €900.

So, the voucher companies' get €100 for making a few bank transfers.

The reason they exist is that many employers are large organisations with complex supplier payment systems. They would have add each bike shop that their employees want to use as a supplier (takes time, requires paperwork, etc, and procedures for adding new suppliers are becoming more complex to protect against payment fraud scams).
Voucher companies visit employers to plug this benefit, and get on their systems, but always neglect to mention that the employees will never get any discount, and will be limited in which shops they can buy from.

However, many smaller employers (and even some large ones) respond well if you (the employee) point this out to them (chat to colleagues in Purchasing), and most bike shops are happy to supply the required details (CRO no., VAT no., Registered Owners, etc) to employers, if it means they can deal directly and exclude the voucher companies.

MojoMaker

Type 17 wrote: »

When you use a €1,000 voucher in a bike shop, the shop redeems the voucher, but only receives only €900.

And passes that deficit onto the customer in the form of a price adjustment on the bike - got it.

There's a lot of companies overthinking this I reckon.

TheChizler

MojoMaker wrote: »

And passes that deficit onto the customer in the form of a price adjustment on the bike - got it.

There's a lot of companies overthinking this I reckon.

Never heard of the voucher companies, they sound like a racket. Medium size multinational here and I just got a handwriten cheque from the finance dept! Why do bike shops entertain it? If I handed over something worth €900 for payment I'd expect only to get €900 worth of goods.

magicbastarder

Type 17 wrote: »

The reason they exist is that many employers are large organisations with complex supplier payment systems. They would have add each bike shop that their employees want to use as a supplier (takes time, requires paperwork, etc, and procedures for adding new suppliers are becoming more complex to protect against payment fraud scams).

i work for a large multinational, and when i availed of the scheme, i showed the team assistant the invoice and she rang the bike shop immediately and paid with the company credit card.

Type 17

TheChizler wrote: »

Never heard of the voucher companies, they sound like a racket...

The voucher companies are the likes of Tr4velhub and B1ketoW0rk Ltd

TheChizler wrote: »

...Medium size multinational here and I just got a handwriten cheque from the finance dept! Why do bike shops entertain it? If I handed over something worth €900 for payment I'd expect only to get €900 worth of goods.

magicbastarder wrote: »

I work for a large multinational, and when i availed of the scheme, i showed the team assistant the invoice and she rang the bike shop immediately and paid with the company credit card.

Great to hear, and when we explained to small business owners why they weren't getting a discount, they all dropped the voucher company and used a cheque or company card (and got the discount), but many people in purchasing departments have strict rules about (or just can't be bothered to) add suppliers.

mirrormatrix

Stark wrote: »

Paid for a bike in Wheelworx with a https://www.bikes4work.ie/ scheme voucher a few years back. Rob's face pretty much sank when I handed it over, apparently they charge a 13% commission which the bike shop owner is supposed to take the hit on. Policy since has been not to offer discounted bikes on the bike2work scheme. Commission probably isn't as bad with other schemes, that particular one is run by One4All who are generally money grabbing ****s imo. Not sure what the commission is on cyclescheme.ie but Expert Cycles recommend them so presume it's not too extortionate.

Wheelworx policy doesn't make any sense. My company was paying direct and not using any voucher, yet they refused to allow me to purchase any bikes that were on sale with bike to work.

Tombo2001

Type 17 wrote: »

When you use a €1,000 voucher in a bike shop, the shop redeems the voucher, but only receives only €900.

So, the voucher companies' get €100 for making a few bank transfers.

The reason they exist is that many employers are large organisations with complex supplier payment systems. They would have add each bike shop that their employees want to use as a supplier (takes time, requires paperwork, etc, and procedures for adding new suppliers are becoming more complex to protect against payment fraud scams).
Voucher companies visit employers to plug this benefit, and get on their systems, but always neglect to mention that the employees will never get any discount, and will be limited in which shops they can buy from.

However, many smaller employers (and even some large ones) respond well if you (the employee) point this out to them (chat to colleagues in Purchasing), and most bike shops are happy to supply the required details (CRO no., VAT no., Registered Owners, etc) to employers, if it means they can deal directly and exclude the voucher companies.

I'm not sure if that is specifically the reason they exist.

I would say its more that when the scheme was created, somebody somewhere - probably in the Dept of Transport - said, well we will need some sort of central facilitator for this, and from this the voucher companies came into play.

A large employer then looked at whatever guidance was on the Dept of Transport website, and said - Its says here that we should be using voucher companies, so thats what we will do.

If there was an industry body for Bike Shops, they should be lobbying around this, because it truly is money for more or less nothing - money that costs the bike shop and costs the consumer, and its hard to see what value it adds.

Type 17

Tombo2001 wrote: »

...somebody somewhere - probably in the Dept of Transport - said, well we will need some sort of central facilitator for this, and from this the voucher companies came into play.

...its hard to see what value it adds.

How dare you imply that a government department would devise a procedure which is needlessly complicated, wastes time and adds costs to end-users :pac:

Macy0161

It's administered by Revenue, not Dept of Transport. Voucher schemes exist purely because of employers, nothing to do with Government. The voucher schemes are effectively the "supplier" in terms of the scheme, so an employer is effectively taking the easy (for them) option.

Tombo2001

Type 17 wrote: »

How dare you imply that a government department would devise a procedure which is needlessly complicated, wastes time and adds costs to end-users :pac:

Look- I shouldnt rush to judgement, but its not clear to me that the value added by the Voucher companies is worth the circa 100 euro they get on a 1000 euro transaction. To put it another way, I would guess it is a high margin business.

Macy0161

Just to repeat, the State doesn't force the use of voucher schemes, even on it's own employees. This is anti-mask level BS!

Type 17

Macy0161 wrote: »

Just to repeat, the State doesn't force the use of voucher schemes, even on it's own employees. This is anti-mask level BS!

No one is saying that they do - there is some light-hearted commentary, but the main reason for their existence is people's lack of knowledge of the scheme and/or some mild convenience for employers (but definitely not employees).

CramCycle

The main reason for their existence is people were smart enough to sucker in companies into using them at the start and a few LBS went with it. Now alot do. It is morally reprehensible but if I was looking at it at the time, I'd have set one up. The amount of MNCs who think travelhub is a government website they have to use is astounding. It's money for nothing bar a few days work, also the cash you get to hold while processing, and the margin for a risk free business is great.

cletus

Lawsuit taken against Trek over helmet efficacy claims

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lawsuit-hits-trek-bicycle-company-for-false-deceptive-helmet-safety-claims/

tomasrojo

Grangegorman motorised traffic restrictions to be made permanent.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/car-curbs-at-grangegorman-in-dublin-to-be-made-permanent-1.4454806

tampopo

MojoMaker wrote: »

And passes that deficit onto the customer in the form of a price adjustment on the bike - got it.

There's a lot of companies overthinking this I reckon.

€50 was added to mine

Seth Brundle

tomasrojo wrote: »

Grangegorman motorised traffic restrictions to be made permanent.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/car-curbs-at-grangegorman-in-dublin-to-be-made-permanent-1.4454806

uh oh...
https://twitter.com/DublinCommuters/status/1348597686388355073

tomasrojo

Ah, that doesn't sound half as good.

I hope that does turn out to be true, and this:
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=115881702&postcount=775

AndrewJRenko

Type 17 wrote: »

No one is saying that they do - there is some light-hearted commentary, but the main reason for their existence is people's lack of knowledge of the scheme and/or some mild convenience for employers (but definitely not employees).

Regular public service bashing, especially when as ill-informed as this, doesn't feel light hearted at all to those on the receiving end.

tomasrojo

tomasrojo wrote: »

Grangegorman motorised traffic restrictions to be made permanent.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/car-curbs-at-grangegorman-in-dublin-to-be-made-permanent-1.4454806

It made it
https://twitter.com/djlonergan/status/1348964787443687427

Seth Brundle

Given that cycling returns a positive cost on the city, maybe the mileage rates should use this figure?

https://twitter.com/DublinInquirer/status/1349285054846001158

tomasrojo

Reasonable point about the difference between incentives and reimbursement (though they don't even reimburse people who have travelled by bike in some of those scenarios), but incentives are worth pursuing. Especially as the cost to the employer is less if more people travel by bike.