Just looking around at some bloody amazing deals in the big mtb shops this morning – 15% of new bikes (even the 2017 ones), 35% in bonus vouches etc, it makes me wonder how much profit are the big chains making on each ‘normal’ sale? Obviously they arent selling anything in these deals at a loss, so are we being mugged during the rest of the year..and seeing as prices are supposedly about to shoot the roof post Brexit, is it only going to get worse?

I fully intend to take advantage of the deals today BTW.

15% of a new bike isn’t much bike 😉 Hope you get at least and 85% discount 😉

Does fully take advantage mean take advantage of the prices because you were going to buy that exact stuff this weekend? or buy stuff because the discount is good?

1% profit for 4 days, and 11% profit for the rest of the year is a business. 1% profit for 365 days is borderline not a business.

things are far cheaper than you think, the retailer always takes his or her cut.
for example 2-3 years ago adidas trainers retailers paid £16-35 for £55-£75 RRP trainers take out the VAT and its still a massive markup, hence even selling at half price they are making £5+ a pair
ten-12 years ago i worked for a major supermarket, chart album CDs were bought for between £1.33 and £1.76 (in bulk) rrp was £8-12

no different in the bike world

Now that is a naive view up there!

Andytherocketeer…yes I nearly dropped the money on a Trek Fuel Ex 9.8 a few days ago, but decided to wait until after the New Year..i can now get it £1k cheaper. I was also fancying an Orange Crush, now £250 cheaper. So yes taking advanctage……

It does make you wonder if we are being fleeced outside Black Friday time.

But not all companies do their best deals at Black Friday time. For example, BT Mobile were doing their £5pcm SIM only card with an unlimited minutes upgrade until midweek, over the normal 200 minutes; unlimited texts; unlimited free BT hotspot use.

It’s also a bit more complicated because of some companies already applying “Brexit tax” to their pricing. Back in the kids’ summer school holiday, Halfords were doing 20% off, which made the Voodoo Marasa £240 and Bizango £400, today they are £320 and £480 respectively.

I think a lot of people are going to be going wild between now and Xmas, not just buying stuff they want/need now, because there is a big fear of 10-20% price hikes from early 2017 due to that awfully run referendum “organised” by Cameron.

Are you getting this colourscheme?

Wonder if they had Fruit Salad sweets in the US?

It’s also a bit more complicated because of some companies already applying “Brexit tax” to their pricing. Back in the kids’ summer school holiday, Halfords were doing 20% off, which made the Voodoo Marasa £240 and Bizango £400, today they are £320 and £480 respectively.

But nothing off the Wazoo which I would like from Santa.

GRRRRRRRR! #ragin’

Whatyadoinsucka, um sorry to say very few if any products in bike ships have anything close to that mark up, the profits in the bike industry are not great and I’d imagine many black Friday deals are loss leaders once you consider overheads.

No you aren’t being fleeced for the other 364 days of the year.

Bike shops have to pay for:
– Rent
– Tax
– Heat
– Light
– Wages
– Coffee
– Tools
– Water
– Holidays

I assume you all work for nothing. Do you? Do you really?

Just because they are doing it for one day doesn’t make it a sustainable business model.

If you want to know if you’re being fleeced, look at the company accounts for anyone you’re buying from. Very few businesses in the world of cycling have big profits. Out of the profit margin on any item you have to pay rent, rates, wages, insurance etc.

whatyadoinsucka – Member
things are far cheaper than you think, the retailer always takes his or her cut.
for example 2-3 years ago adidas trainers retailers paid £16-35 for £55-£75 RRP trainers take out the VAT and its still a massive markup, hence even selling at half price they are making £5+ a pair
ten-12 years ago i worked for a major supermarket, chart album CDs were bought for between £1.33 and £1.76 (in bulk) rrp was £8-12

no different in the bike world

This is so true – I actually buy in Eagle XX1 groupsets for 46p and spend the majority of my days swimming through my vast vaults of gold in a Scrooge McDuck stylee.

Back in the 1990s, the markup on big name electrical brands at the time (eg. Sony, Bang & Olufson, Hitachi etc.) was ~25% between wholesale and retail prices. No idea what they are now, as my parent and step-parent divorced ~20 years back.

Different goods have different markups, which then always varies a bit between brands. No doubt this applies to bike gear too, but what sort of ballpark markup this is, I have no idea. I’d guesstimate at least 15%.

Not all Black Friday deals are actually any good. CRC are offering Magic Mary at £36.99 as a BF offer. I paid £33.49 a few weeks ago…

I don’t think a lot of black Friday deals are that great, I’m actually convinced that some online retailers see it as a way showing the illusion of discount.

what I’ve seen on a lot of sites is less popular stuff they discount anyway at various times of the year with average discounts applied,

I was searching on CR for exposure lights and the only stuff they had discounted was pre black Friday and wasn’t even in stock… however Evans were cheaper all week and still cheaper than anyones ‘black friday’ deals.

No.

Black Friday is about getting people to shop. The “bargains” can be dead stock, marked down from an RRP that nobody charges, or just loss leaders to get your eyeballs on a website/bodies in the door.

I know of one lbs where the business tax is over £30k a year. That’s not in that London, that’s in the shire.
They must be racking that in by lunch time on a Monday.

BF is pretty much a race to the bottom.
But make hay while the sun shines

I think Black Friday this year is just a way for companies to sell off old stock.

I’ve been looking at the TVs across various retailers and they all seem to have the same ones for sale which means they’ve obviously all bought the same stock cheap and are selling on cheap.

It’s the same with a lot of the electricals, most of them are end or line and being sold a bit cheaper to get rid of them.

I’ve bought a couple of things that are going to cost me less than wholesale. Big box retailers so they might not be paying standard wholesale, but still.

Most big online retailers buy in specifically for BF now, all the distributors have to clear stock as well don’t forget, so if they’re discounting their stock the retailers pass this on to the consumer. The mark up is no where near what a lot of people think. I’ve known Shimano stuff to be sold at a loss as are a lot of bikes at the end of the year, just to keep the cash flow up. Also strikes me that since CRC are moving in with Wiggle in Wolverhampton surely it might be cheaper for them to sell stock at a loss than move loads of it over the irish sea and re-locate it.

For me it’s just an event that (successfully) creates the illusion of special bargains, which feeds off social norms and drives up the volume of sales as people feel more pressure than normal to purchase something within a window of opportunity. In this way it is manufactured sales hysteria. The reality is that there are so many sales throughout the year that ‘sale’ is ever more meaningless. I have no interest in tracking prices on multiple products across multiple retailers, waiting for the right point to buy.

We’re not being mugged the rest of the year, it’s just this kind of event isn’t a sustainable one so retailers will have a higher margin for the rest of the year on smaller volume of sales.

<Bored, semi-Marxist rant ENDS> 🙂

Obviously they arent selling anything in these deals at a loss

Really? You actually believe these prices would be sustainable?

Try working in retail, there is no money in it.

Most of the stuff discounted is stuff that I’ve little interest in. Where are the deals on stuff I actually want – find me a set of Hope race brakes for £100 an end for example.

Most of the stuff discounted is stuff that I’ve little interest in. Where are the deals on stuff I actually want – find me a set of Hope race brakes for £100 an end for example.

quite, I want castelli bid shorts for £20. b7stards

Like NY sales etc. it has generated an interest, you are looking and browsing with you card ready to buy. If you can shift volume for 1 day and free up cash then you can stock what you want going forward.
If it’s a bricks and mortar store then you probably won’t be doing any selling as such just processing the transaction.

Business is way more complex than the ticket prices…..

My local shop Wheelbase are doing buy 100 quid of vouchers get 135 quid gone for 300s worth giving me a grand total of 405 so 25% off, looking at a wheel build for my new frame so I,m happy supporting them and the lads that work there!
You can even buy the vouchers online
http://www.wheelbase.co.uk

ten-12 years ago i worked for a major supermarket, chart album CDs were bought for between £1.33 and £1.76 (in bulk) rrp was £8-12
no different in the bike world

😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

*Pauses for breath*

😆 😆 😆

Be with you in a minute 😆

ten-12 years ago i worked for a major supermarket, chart album CDs were bought for between £1.33 and £1.76 (in bulk) rrp was £8-12
no different in the bike world

I’m even dubious about that margin for a super market. Unless that was some sort of deal in return for shelf position to get to number 1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23840744

https://bandzoogle.com/blog/record-sales-where-does-the-money-go

Black Friday works if you can buy what you need cheaply. last year we knew we needed 2 tents for next summer

One was Black Friday from Go Outdoors £75. It then went upto about £130 all summer. The other Tent came from a Belgium Website in the spring where it was suddenly half price when the new model came out.

Mrs Ampthill walks dogs for a living and gets through alot of outdoor gear. She has just bought new coat and boots as we know that they will be needed and they were crazy cheap today

But overall I hate the flash sale thing on Outdoor Gear. It does really make you feel that full retail price is mugs game set high for those with deep pockets to make the discounts look good.

But i don’t think bikes fit that model in the same way. I’ve never seen this years bike 40% off. (Planet X aside)

I know of one lbs where the business tax is over £30k a year. That’s not in that London, that’s in the shire.
They must be racking that in by lunch time on a Monday.

So because a business makes a profit and pays tax that is a bad thing?

My local bike store also does lots of bike training and if I wanted to I could look up their accounts but do not feel the need to do so. The owners are great people and the staff are great too so why shouldn’t they make a profit and pay tax?

I know of one lbs where the business tax is over £30k a year. That’s not in that London, that’s in the shire.
They must be racking that in by lunch time on a Monday.

I think Curvature misread that I’m seeing

They have £30,000 fixed tax costs

Sarcasm i bet they make that on Monday morning

I’ve been waiting for about a Month for this hallowed event to appear so that I could bag some Castelli gear.

Leading up to the big Day week 1 bargains followed by week 2 Black Friday bargains, which mainly consisted of week 1 tat carried over. Week 3 arrived so I dubiously perused their website to find it was a collection of the previous two weeks. The big day eventually arrived and there it was laid bare. Mostly made up of tat from 2008 to 2012 that no one wanted then and they are still trying to get shut if it now.

I’ve had countless spam mails from every single place that I’ve bought something from over the past 12 months. The only one that I took advantage of was from Piza but of all places. That sorted out last nights evening for my son and his mate who’s slept over.

Black Friday appeared to be mostly the big guys shifting unsold crap, with the occasional little guy giving a discount on something they rely on to keep them going.

Confusion tactics work equally well in sales and politics these days.

imo it’s better to be straight up and consistent, set fair RRPs based on your costs and the market and discount when you need to clear stock. Value is related to trust. Discount when you need to compete also but that’s the race that not everyone needs to tag onto. Black Friday is the one that’s hooked so many, so few want to be left out. Becoming harder to stay consistent with a value offering with the level of fast info, phone browsing to price match anywhere etc. One discounter can upset the value of everyone’s stock by only having 1 bike/jersey/groupset in stock at that price, used as a kind of advertising, causes doubt and the fear we’re being fleeced and drives web traffic.
Depends whether you’re a sales-rusher or a considered needs buyer perhaps.

I had to laugh when I got a Black Friday email from The Dogs Trust.

So I think it’s safe to say the whole BF thing has got a bit out of control.

True story: A couple of weeks ago I had a confidential copy of a very well-known internet retailer’s Black Friday discount sheet, for work purposes. Looking at it all laid out on a spreadsheet it was clear that the discounts were actually a bit rubbish – with discounts in the region of 50%-off restricted to TVs that were being superseded and high-margin tat like gaming accessories or routers.

I’m not totally anti though. I did get some half price 5:10 Freerider Elements thanks to a thread on here – which I think we’d all agree are a necessary and highly-justifiable purchase.

Going back to the frame debate and being Mugged off, I’ve recently had an ongoing problem with a frame, Diagnosing the symptom appeared to be almost impossible until they eventually swapped out the frame because of my continued moaning.

During the process the manufacturer refused a warranty replacement due to the fact that it couldnt be diagnosed but offered me a frame at Cost to that retailer. The frame cost Retail £2,500. To me £750. The retailer said thats what they got them in at. Which got me thinking how much a frame actually costs to produce.

I’m not naming the Shop or manufacturer by the way as i was specifically asked to NOT do so. I’ve shopped here for a long time and do not want them to get incoming because of me. But claiming a shop makes next to no money when they clearly do is crap.

Hence the reason they can all offer interest free finance. The store pays for the privilege but the consumer thinks they are getting a good deal where if they had paid cash or debit card they could have negotiated a discount.

However I still see some stores offering interest free finance even on heavily discounted items.

@ xyeti
In my experience, firstly a mark up of that magnitude on a frame or bike is pretty rare. Secondly, for the vast majority of shops sales of £2500 frames or even complete bikes at full RRP are far more a welcome bonus than a staple diet.

My limited experience would suggest that frame’s “trade” price is closer to what an importer might pay, than a retailer.

Bit of a sidetrack, as I was reading this thread Mrs Mellie told me about a news story on the online Daily Hysteria:

The Bullring in Birmingham opened three hours early at 7am as staff anticipated a rush of eager shoppers, but the only place with a queue was the Greggs bakery as just a handful of customers milled around the centre.

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As you were 🙂