Quick question to gauge opinion

Do you think its fair that bike shops increase prices of existing stock using the reasoning that replacements wil cost more?

if you spend £10 to buy something but later it will cost you £15 to replace how do you stay in business if you don’t increase the price on old stock.

Business is about making money.

if you spend £10 to buy something but later it will cost you £15 to replace how do you stay in business if you don’t increase the price on old stock.

Although if you go back to the day they bought the stock, they paid £10 to then sell it for £20. The restock costs £15 and so the 2nd one has to sell for £25. Where is the problem, there is still £10 profit in either case. The £10 one hasn’t cost anymore to buy as they have already paid for it, so why make £15 profit on it?

Here’s a plan – don’t buy it

If the shop gets its pricing wrong, they’ll either reduce them or go out of business

I have no loyalty. I buy it whereever it is cheapest.
I’m not in the business to support the shops and their mark-ups. I want cheap products

presumably you’d expect them to drop prices of existing stock if/when shimano’s list price comes down, so yes

I live in OZ and its cheaper to buy from wiggle or chainreaction where i used to live in the UK than the LBS’s here ….. go figure ?

I agree with Anthony. I think any stock bought at a lower original cost price, should honour the RRP from the time it was stocked. To increase the price of this stock to the newer RRP is not on IMO. Of course it’s totally legal, but it’s not very honorable practice as far as I’m concerned.

As pointed out though, if retails dropped you’d expect the shop to instantly their prices, in some cases this can be quite a massive drop!

Fair play IMO, if you don’t want to pay that price, buy it elsewhere/buy something else!

In my shop, I’ve left all the old rrp stickers on products on display, so if an item scans through the till at the new higher prices, the staff can manually change the price to the old lower rrp, because products with old labels were bought in at cheaper prices, so I offer fair pricing.

But…when Shimano or whoever lower their rrps and trade prices again, will you expect me to honour the new lower rrp on old higher priced stock and lose money, or honour the old higher rrp so I make a few quid to pay the bills?

I will get NO rebate/retro credit from my suppliers to honour any new lower rrps, so I will do the same, leave the higher price labels on so my staff charge the correct amount to ensure the shop makes a profit. No profit=no shop.

As for Steve-Austin, I hope you haggle like hell at your bank/petrol station/supermarket ‘cos they are making a hell of a lot more mark up than a bike shop….to put it into perspective, a bike shop makes between 20-40p gross for every £1 sold…out of that 20-40p the VAT, wages, rates, utilities and rent have to be paid.

I used to manage a supermarket, £2rrp ready meal…bought in for 11p!

Bike shops are not ripping you off, high street chain stores/banks/supermarkets/petrol companies/insurance companies are!

It’s a fair point about things that come down in price. Although it doesn’t happen as often though!

Well said, Plugger, you’re right there.
Supermarkets are the worst offenders in a way that affects me. They have a virtual monopoly, and then fail to employ enough staff for the checkouts – they expect me to queue for the privelidge of buying their goods. If i treated my customers that way i’d sink fast.
Jeez, we had a great day at the shop today and whacked a fair wedge in the till, but boy, is it hard work. It’s not like selling beans! 😆

So, during January sales etc when we’re offered 30%, 50% or 75% off stock, are we appreciating the sale prices or like me, realising that we are being overcharged by 30%, 50% or 75% in the first instance??. Plugger will also know that these 95%GP products are ‘homemade’ items using potential cheap items in the first place and are items that the supermarket don’t need to stock but will if they get great prices from them. When you start talking about known products such as Kelloggs or cadburys then the mark up is alot lower because the brands dont rely on the supermarkets as much to sell their products.Supermarkets will also have alot higher overheads than a bike shop. Bit of give and take really.

All credit to Full Flow in glasgow, they just gave me my new frame at the old price, they could easily have sold it for the full current price or tbh I would have been pleased if they’d just split the difference. Very pleased. Dave Hinde on the other hand didn’t just instantly mark up all their old stock, they cancelled ongoing orders as “out of stock” so didn’t even honour orders already placed, then increased the prices on the stuff they’d actually already sold. Nice.

I think it’s fair for a shop to increase the price. AFAIK as part of their end of year accounts they need to give a value of their stock so they should be doing this accurately using the current value – with the price increase. Therefore when they sell the product it takes into account the current cost price. It might not seem fair or make sense to the consumer but for a small business it’s the only sensible option. Otherwise you can end up with the situation whereby some old stock is at the old price and new stock more expensive. How can you justify the differences? It doesn’t make sense if an old stock XT mech is prices the same as new stock deore.

At the end of the day a bike shop doing this is effectively bringing forward the price changes a few months ahead of doing so as new stock arrives. The consumer moaning about this needs to realise that prices are going to increase and bike shops are a business. If bike shops don’t use their business head you will lose them. Customers who are aware of internet pricing aren’t a huge part of their business, as those customers don’t use bike shops so often to buy parts anyway.

I work with bike shops dealing with their pricing for all brands.

Well put Solamanda.

Too many riders are pointing the finger at their bike shop over price increases. Poor exchange rates are the real cause, forcing suppliers/importers to increase their prices.

If this country actually manufactured anything anymore, we wouldn’t be hit so hard.

Gets off his speaker’s corner and goes back to watching the F1 . . .

Our shop increases the prices when new stock comes in at a new price, but we have recently put down the prices on some items bought in at a high price too, simply because that is the new RRP. As has been said, that simply loses us money but we don’t get praised for absorbing the loss, just criticised for the original increase.

Do the people who complain about LBS prices also complain about corner shop prices on things like Kellogs cereal, milk or brand name coffee? Do they just buy anyway if they need it or do they head off to the out of town supermarket to save the 20% extra mark up?

I’m looking forward to price drops due to the price of steel and shipping costs falling or were those excuses for the rises just b0llocks? There’s also going to come a point where the Market will decide that prices need to come down to seperate people from their cash

I’m looking forward to price drops due to the price of steel and shipping costs falling

Me too. Shame those effects were totally cancelled out by the exchange rate crash.

The LBS can only tell you what they are told….. ie: suppliers put prices up due to material/fuel costs (material bought a year or more in advance sometimes) or currency rates (buy one lot every 3-6 months). This would mean that it could be up to a year after the markets change before the prices start to reflect this, depending on the part.

Another example of markup:

Big Mac in McDonald’s sells for £1.99 (or it might even be £2.09 now). Costs 14p.

got proof of that ally?

Costs 14p.

Depends of course how you define costs?

Raw material costs? Marketing, promotion, staffing, insurance…

Oh of course, it’s just the raw costs. And McDonald’s spend millions on marketing etc so the true cost will be much higher.

No proof but it’s what I’ve seen from working there. It’s the price the system (used) to allocate to work out the cost of food waste.

pointless argument