This has been bugging me for sometime.
I’ve been looking at a few frames and complete bikes recently and I’ve noticed that purchasing components from the manufacture appears to be at RRP or close to.

Example- Cotic charge £550 for an XT groupset! I can buy the same groupset for £450 from Merlin. Same goes for the Hope components and dropper posts. Orange is just as bad.

Do these companies not get a wholesale discount? or trade prices? Even if they didn’t sell the volume to justify it, couldn’t they buy X amount from Merlin or other cheaper sources and only add a small % margin on to it?

Seems like bad business model to charge £500 for a frame and not discount other parts to go with it. ~

Wednesday morning ramble over.

Companies charging the RRP? What con merchants! 😉

Perhaps they don’t get grey-market imports like Merlin etc. Do the prices also include bolting the parts to the frame?

Cotic charge £550 for an XT groupset! I can buy the same groupset for £450 from Merlin

I’m not sure anyone comes out well from a price comparison with Merlin etc?

I suspect Margin for Cotic is minimal at what they’re selling for and they need to buy ‘official’ kit as they want to have warranty back up for it.

CRC/Merlin are happier to take a punt on grey imports and deal with warranty issues themselves.

Will cotic build up for you in that price?

Normal rules: If you don’t like the price go elsewhere. If you’d rather support a small business and buy everything from one place then do that.

Are you saying that that is what the cost comes out as when you buy a complete bike or their ‘rolling chassis’ option? I was trying to price up frame + equivalent components from elsewhere but can’t really get under their overall prices without getting NOS or lesser components.

I suspect Margin for Cotic is minimal at what they’re selling for and they need to buy ‘official’ kit as they want to have warranty back up for it.

That’s pretty much it. Trade prices through official channels can be equal or higher than the prices of big online retailers selling direct to customers. Don’t blame Cotic et al. it’s certainly not price gouging on their part.

The prices available to businesses also depend on the volume that they shift… Companies like Cotic are going to be pretty tiny players in terms of selling Shimano bits.

Cotic charge £550 for an XT groupset! I can buy the same groupset for £450 from Merlin. Same goes for the Hope components and dropper posts. Orange is just as bad.

I’m confused, you’ve found cheaper suppliers, surely you are just a few mouse clicks from saving yourself hundreds of quid, why are you whining exactly?

you are comparing a relatively small OEM customer’s pricing with the cut price, discount outfits who probably buy more stock (Greater discount) and won’t always go through the local official distributor…

If Merlin or CRC can get those XT parts in bulk from a seller in Poland/Brazil/China for 10% less than Madison will flog them, then they’ll do that deal, undercut the rest of the market and shift the stock… Everyone else; LBSs and bike manufacturers are hamstrung on price by having to deal with the official distribution chain and not getting the kind of bulk discounts the interweb warehouses get…

I’m more annoyed by the likes of orange who charge almost full RRP for upgrades, but don’t give you the original part from your bike! Ie an extra £250 for a reverb dropper and they keep the original post????

Nah still not computing.

Can you not simply buy the stock Five, then buy the cheap Reverb from CRC, Merlin or whoever…

Fitting a Reverb isn’t Brain surgery…

As above – hardly anyone can complete with CRC etc on price.

Bye bye high street!

There’s a reason why OEM forks,for example, on Merlin come unboxed with no seals, pump or decals.

£200 quid off is that reason.

If I got a fully built soul, for example, i’d want to know for damn sure all my stuff is under warranty and the groupset hadn’t been stripped off some Meridas Cubes bikes in middle Europe, shipped off & sold to Cotic on the grey market.

So what are you lot complaining about exactly, that you need to shop about a bit to get a bargain, Awwww diddums…

How Dare the likes of Cotic and Orange charge full RRP for parts, especially to customers who are too lazy to spend 5 extra minutes googling to save £100…

By the way it turns out that the £50 floor mats aren’t actually a compulsory purchase with your Audi, just so you’re aware…

Forget RRP, its an inflated figure designed to make discounted components look like a bargain.

So what are you lot complaining about exactly

I think the ‘you lot’ on this thread consists entirely of the OP with everyone else struggling to understand what the problem is?

“tpbiker” seems aggrieved with Oranges pricing policies too, so that makes two, Perhaps I’ve upgraded a duo to a “You lot” then…

Orange don’t just charge rrp for Hope upgrades, they charge you for the original spec part you’re not getting. If anything they should charge the difference or supply the OE, but they keep it, don’t knock it off the price, and charge you full whack for the Hope.

And people pay it (I dont, for cookeaa’s benefit). The OP’s biggest mistake was naming Cotic as the “offender”, it’s a valid question/point (basically, do smaller manufacturers get the same OE discount and then make a profit?) but that will just rattle the STW Fanboi Army who are happy to lose an entire riding season waiting for a frame.

Think the Orange criticism is spot on – those upgrades represent very poor value. And since you’d be uying th ebike through a shop anyway, there’s no reason to buy them – you could just order the basic bike, buy the bars in the shop, and chances are you get them fitted free.

(missed edit window)

So what are you lot complaining about exactly, that you need to shop about a bit to get a bargain, Awwww diddums…

The OP clearly has shopped around and as a result asked a question rather than whinged about being ripped off, and it’s been answered. Mail order houses buy in bulk on the grey market and can undercut official suppliers. The Reverbs people are getting from CRC for £160 appear to be full retail-sale models, as was the one I bought for ~£150 from Merlin a while ago, the Easton Haven bars I PSA’ed at Wiggle for £28 were cheaper than trade and came in retail packaging.

When I was the market for a new frame, Orange charged the full rrp for the CCDB upgrade without deducting the cost of the Fox shock you didnt get. I know how to look for bargains and got a brand new Alpine 160 frame, with CCDB, from an official Orange dealer, for £1050. Which makes their rrp eye-watering.

I thought Merlin et al could sell OEM cheap because they built bikes so bought the parts in OEM from suppliers to fit to their bikes, then flogged off what was left over*

Surely the other frame manufacturers mentioned above could do the same?

Why would they use retail parts to build a bike?

*or over-ordered to flog off cheap

My wheelbuilder can’t buy Dura Ace hubs any cheaper than Evans are selling them at discount. He told be to go there!

Giant store couldn’t source a Dura Ace groupset even close to Merlin.

I’m also sure there is good trade in dissasembling unsold bikes. Just as bikes are stolen for components. It’s probably economical to bin the frames for generic bikes.

We have an OE account with Shimano.

http://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/CBOO456CXT/on-one-456-evo-carbon-shimano-xt-mountain-bike

We have an OE account with Shimano.

http://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/CBOO456CXT/on-one-456-evo-carbon-shimano-xt-mountain-bike

Thats what I was getting at, surely someone like orange would have the same buying facility?!?

I thought Merlin et al could sell OEM cheap because they built bikes so bought the parts in OEM from suppliers to fit to their bikes, then flogged off what was left over*

Surely the other frame manufacturers mentioned above could do the same?

Yes they can, but OEM and Grey imports aren’t the same.

One has come through official channels the other hasn’t.
Cotic vs merlin is more about economies of scale.

Merlin could only be making a few quid on those groupsets but the stack em high sell cheap method is working well for them.

There is a good chance Cotic can’t buy as many groupsets as merlin and don’t see it as cost effective to match them.

Thats what I was getting at, surely someone like orange would have the same buying facility?!?

Yes. I know they do as me and our guys went go karting with their guys and the men from Shimano.
We won 🙂

However, our business model is shorter than theirs. We buy from Shimano and sell to customers.
Orange, in some cases, sell through a distributor as well as a shop. This adds margin.
Cotic have dealers too. Hence the extra pricing.
We have shops, but we own them.

If you’re shopping online, find the best deal you can, buy it, stop wondering why others can’t match it. Someone has to be cheapest, and it’s often likely to be Merlin or CRC. Not always, but often.

Think how frustrating those online prices must be for bike shops? (Remember them?)

The Orange seatpost criticism seems pretty unfair… I mean, the rigid seatpost the Reverb replaces must be worth peanuts, no?

Forget RRP, its an inflated figure designed to make discounted components look like a bargain.

Or to give your LBS enough margin that they can afford to pay their staff at the end of each week??

If you think Orange upgrades are a ripoff (they are) then check out Ubyk’s Orbea upspecs, they’re just insane.

Example- Cotic charge £550 for an XT groupset! I can buy the same groupset for £450 from Merlin. Same goes for the Hope components and dropper posts. Orange is just as bad.

I’m amazed. Someone is selling something for more than the (normally) cheapest place on the internet? [aghast face]

Something must be done about this!

Isn’t this just a rehash of ton’s thread from the other day?!

I think tons may have been a rehash of this, given the op date….