You want a bike Halfords won’t get for you, so you go to an independent who are signed up with Halfords to accept their vouchers.

What %age does the shop have to take off your voucher to allow for the Halfords “commission”.

I’ve heard 5%, 15% and 20%, from 2 different shops.

Any real life facts out there?

£1K voucher, should we be aiming for a build at £800, £850, or £950?

Cheers!

Eh?

If you come into our shop with a £1,000 Halfords voucher, you get a £1,000 bike.

Have I misunderstood the OP?

Hmm as Onion said you may have not had this explained well enough to you.

You bring us a £1000 voucher. You can have a £1000 retail bike (non sale i.e. non discounted bike).
You cannot have your free £150 worth of Halfords accessories though.

We send the voucher to Halfords and in about 14days or so we get sent a cheque for £850.

So the 15% you refer to is a cost to us and not to you.

You may find some shops administering an admin fee on top of the voucher or as you have described perhaps some are actually taking it from you inside the £1000.
Does this make more sense now?

Perfect, 2 people from bike shops! Thank you!

tbc, I can understand that approach if I was buying an off the peg Spec. Allez or something. Makes sense.

Bit more info then: Cos I’m being picky, I want a particular frame (&f) that isn’t cheap – retail is over half of the £1K (and so the rest will be compromised on quality)

First shop I spoke to said that because of the Halfords cut, they wouldn’t be able to build something up within the £1K. 2nd shop said they’d try and come up with a build, but they’d have to allow for the 15%, so it would be a £850 build.

I can understand that the margins on retail bits might be less than the margins on bits, but is this in the spirit of the arrangement or not?

We’re coming to a separate agreement on the labour.

There are no reasons other than cost to not have a build of your choice.
However as you are discovering it is going to be pretty tough to make this work.
You really are at the mercy of your retailers as its effectively minimal profit for lots of additional work in going custom.

Hope you find what you need.

Yep, echoing Mark here….

15% goes to Halfords and their commission/partner arrangement.

Depending on the shop, their main lines and products….even 15% can be quite a push (as far as munching the operational margins).

If you’re after a more unique, frame offering (with probably lower margin for movement on a hardtail/road etc)….and custom build…..the chances are that the shop in question will find it pretty hard to make the build work….although, i’m sure they’ll try as customs are the fun stuff….

But, 15% is the figure that Halfords will slice away….

Scott

thebiketree

cool, thanks Mark, Scott. I’m sure we’ll get there, the most confident and authoritative answer I heard before I jumped on here was 15%, so I’ve been working on that basis. I just wanted to to be absolutely sure before we started placing orders. I want a good deal, but I don’t want to piss them off by being totally ruthless!

You might find it impossible to negotiate with a dealer if you are planning too.

We don’t on any cyclescheme or halfords – more people now seem to be just stumping up the cash/card instead as they realise they can get a better deal, they then own the bike in full and there will be no humming and hawing in 12months time as to what the employer wants to do with it.