moan moan moan !!

Rock Lobster 853 tig was £999.95 last week. It’s now £1249.95
Team Tig SL gone from £999.95 to £1199.95
The spec hasn’t changed either.

Has their website got flu and got confused? That’s a huge increase !
I know you get 10% off once its in the basket so it means that its from approx £900 to £1125….WTF

Malt bikes prices have been raised too. Bugger

…and they’ve sneaked a new model on the site too
Malt 3

Apart from VAT, fuel, exchange rates etc; how can the prices go up so much?

Didn’t Shimano raise they’re prices recently too? Also it’s the 10 speed kit on it, was it 9 speed before?

Give them a tinkle if not and find out.

In defense of Merlin, who I think offer a great service and some pretty special deals, I think they’ve just reduced the amount of discount from the original RRP, but the prices are still discounted, together with the extra discount that you get at checkout as you rightly stated.
No affiliation with Merlin btw 🙂

At some point things have to give

they must have looked at the VAT rise and though can we absorb, what do we really need to charge. The bikes are still great value

Is the spec identical. I haven’t looked for a while they are now 10 speed SLX and Marzocchi 44s

It’s probably so they can do a 20% off sale in a month or two

No spec change since last week, just price change.
They were incredibly good value.
All the other bikes are same price Mondraker, Cove, Sanderson so it seems strange

Good Thinking Batman!

..hence my confusion !!

I phoned Merlin and the price hike is due to “VAT and other price rises” and yes the web prices are correct, they really have gone up 20-25%.
The non-Merlin/RL bikes are not increased “as they are from other suppliers”.

Prices have gone up for sure, Merlin will buy the bikes in US$ and the price they pay depends on how many TW$ the US$ buys.
just before Xmas it was 32 to the US dollar, now its 29 so the price goes up 10-13% approx. That combined with the VAT rise to 20% and all the other factors that contribute to retail price makes for a decent hike in the wrong direction.
A little birdie told me that all prices from all manufacturers are up for 2011-12, Merlin included.
Its still a great bike and a snip at the price.

That’s a good point Jim ….. but last weeks bikes weren’t at last week’s exchange rate and this week’s bikes are not at this week’s exchange rate
They must bulk buy many months in advance and as the US$ is in decline then that could explain a lot of it.
The VAT rise is only 2.13% in real terms so a £100 items is now £102.13

Merlin do make very good bikes though and they’re probably still good value compared to similar spec big brand bikes.

I was moaning ‘cos I was really keen to get one but now its gone up 25% its less attractive