Simple market economics – charge the maximum you can before the customers stop paying. When they stop, reduce the price until they come back…

Some of us will always buy 99% of our kit on the second hand market (except pads, cables, etc etc) and be just as happy without the latest ultra-damping fork technology (which, lets face it, makes zero impact on your riding ability… the advertisers just tell us it will)

(which, lets face it, makes zero impact on your riding ability

That’s true but that’s also like saying the weather conditions have zero impact on your riding ability, or the tyres you chose have zero impact on your riding ability.

Kit never has an impact on your riding ability. It only changes how quick you’re able to ride with that ability.

The damping in modern forks and shocks is so good in general these days that the marginal difference between one product and the next is really rather small. But that’s not the same as saying that it’s not important. It’s just that everyone has raised the bar so high you largely don’t need to worry about it.

Perhaps ‘ability’ is probably the wrong word. Either way, as you say, the bar has been raised so high by all the players, the difference between the models is almost insignificant (in practise).

Credit due to the advertising department at Fox/RS/Bos…

Perhaps ‘ability’ is probably the wrong word.

I get what you’re saying. I also think that people make choices for other reasons that improving their speed or performance. I’d also say that we as consumers have got very good at creating and defining characteristics among the products we buy. I’m not sure that the marketing departments of the big bike companies are terribly sophisticated, at least not in the grand scheme of product marketing, for example within FMCG. I think they do an OK job but I think that we are filling in a lot of blanks as consumers.

Some of us will always buy 99% of our kit on the second hand market (except pads, cables, etc etc) and be just as happy without the latest ultra-damping fork technology (which, lets face it, makes zero impact on your riding ability… the advertisers just tell us it will)

For me it’s that I don’t buy forks every year. The last new set was 2004. Each set is a massive improvement in damping control weight and stiffness. If I got a new bike every year I’d not be as amazed just poorer.

When crc dropped reverbs the other week it was way below what where I work get them for at trade and we had to price match people coming in therefore having to sell them at a loss. Crc don’t have the overheads of lbs or chain bike shops so again they can cut the price lower than them. Also because of how much stock they sell they will buy more and therefore get it at a cheaper trade price than lbs. it’s hard because everyone wants a deal which is right because its a expensive hobby but I doubt anyone would want to see there to be no bike shops and everything online.

xiphon – Member

Some of us will always buy 99% of our kit on the second hand market (except pads, cables, etc etc) and be just as happy without the latest ultra-damping fork technology (which, lets face it, makes zero impact on your riding ability…

Riding ability, no… But I recently went from ancient motion control boxxers to modern (used, but good nick) R2C2 jobbies and they do the job hilariously better. Riding is you + bike vs world, it doesn’t have to make you better.

It’s not about cost or buying new, some stuff just works better than other stuff.

What’s wrong with OE?

When crc dropped reverbs the other week it was way below what where I work get them for at trade and we had to price match people coming in therefore having to sell them at a loss. Crc don’t have the overheads of lbs or chain bike shops so again they can cut the price lower than them. Also because of how much stock they sell they will buy more and therefore get it at a cheaper trade price than lbs. it’s hard because everyone wants a deal which is right because its a expensive hobby but I doubt anyone would want to see there to be no bike shops and everything online.

Well no. Those Reverbs weren’t ‘normal’ stock- they appeared to be a job lot bought up from an unofficial channel, and I bet a few people further up the distribution chain were fuming. IIRC, Brant said that On-One had been offered them, but declined. If anyone pricematches retail product with oem stuff they probably need their head read.

Some of the really cheap reverbs were ‘official’ 😐 We have various Rockshox stuff in that is going to have to be sold off at cost price due to the online price sh”@ing going on, however they are prepped unlike the online stuff, waste of time for no money, not amused 👿

Whether people/LBS’s like it or not, the big online shops arn’t going away, what should really be stopped is the ‘grey import’ selling by manufacturers.

Maybe Madison dropping Easton Bell Sports is the start of a bit of a backlash towards it.

Obviously a distributor/retailer can sell products for less (or for higher margin) than the retailers they supply. That offends my sense of fairness tbh, bricks and mortar shops have it hard enough. But it doesn’t stop me from buying from CRC, so I can’t complain really.

Maybe Madison dropping Easton Bell Sports is the start of a bit of a backlash towards it.

We’ll see, tbh I was pretty impressed by it.

I know quite a few shops won’t be dealing with certain brands next year because of their stance on grey imports and selling stuff to the online guys. They’ll have got themselves into the position that the big suppliers will be able to almost tell them what price they’ll have to sell the stock to them at as no one else will be buying it.
They’ve made their bed etc etc
Interesting to see how this all pans out over the next few years, already planning global domination over here 😛

Edit: interestingly I’ve yet to see any really heavily discounted CCDB units or have I missed them?

I know quite a few shops won’t be dealing with certain brands next year because of their stance on grey imports and selling stuff to the online guys. They’ll have got themselves into the position that the big suppliers will be able to almost tell them what price they’ll have to sell the stock to them at as no one else will be buying it.

It’s a double edged sword, shops that will only stock stuff that’s not available online are going to be pretty empty shops. What they need is manufacturers & distributors to have better stock control & force a similar approach to Specialized – as in if you want to stock current MY product, it only gets advertised at retail price online. In store, do as you please.

Some of the online shops have effectively destroyed brands in this country by devaluing product in sales so much, no one will pay retail prices any more. This isn’t always a bulk buying power thing either, it can be due to poor stock control at their end and running far too heavy on stock at periods when they should be lean, so they blow lines out of the water to purge product every now & then.

Edited to add: I’ve seen some DB’s (coil and air) towards the end of last year at 25% off with some of the big Euro shops.