cannondaleking – Member
Hopes trade prices are very high so very little mark for retailer plus min order of £500 I think last time I ordered from them plus carrage. Hence why I don’t stock hope just get it in to order as its a lot for me to have too much of it sat in stock
And this is one of my biggest issues with the Modern LBS. They hold as little stock as possible, and ime it’s all low-end stuff. You visit the shop, you think you know what you want and the LBS offer to order it in for you, at a price ~60% over the web price.
(I was quoted £150 to order an item I could get for £90 online)
So, for doing nothing more than visiting my LBS and deferring the process of going online and clicking the buy button, to a shop assistant. I will be charged significantly more than if I had remained at home and ordered online, myself.
Then we get LBS owners wondering why things are the way they are. Perhaps if LBS owners had the minimals to actually hold stock, then perhaps folks would get back into the habit of going to the shop to buy stuff. I don’t mind paying between 10 to 15% over the web price, if I can walk into a shop and buy the item there and then.
However, I suspect that we’ve entered a one-way street on this matter. You can’t un-invent the web.
I think I like what Hope do. They appear to stay and Manufacture in the UK and call me whatever you want to. I do buy Hope partly for the fact that it’s UK produced. I know it’s terribly unfashionable to support UK business and all that. But, well, you know me…