After getting sidetracked due to road riding over winter, I’ve started to think about a new lightweight FS bike again, and the top two contenders at the moment are the Yeti ASR enduro and Trek Top Fuel 9.8SL. UK prices are pretty similar; £3.6K for the Yeti, £3.75K for the Trek. However I noticed that the US prices are $3.7K (Yeti) and $5K (Trek) (spec on the Trek is much higher, as you might expect). Why the price difference after import? Something to do with scale no doubt, with Trek being such a big company. Or is it just seen as acceptable to add a big chunk to a ‘boutique’ brand?

Combination of both – the scale of the company allows Trek to have it’s own distribution in the UK which will save it a layer of markup. But mostly a case of charging what they can get away with. A perfectly sound business strategy.

hypothetical scenario:

Maybe “Walking bikes with nice walk handlebars” have a more advantageous arrangement whereby the trademark for the decimal point in the name is owned by a subsidiary in Holland who then pay a licence to a company in the Isle of Man and use the profits to make a 999 year loan back to “Walking bikes with nice walk handlebars” in the USA.

Either that or niche tax.

The latter probably. I’d assume they see their competitors as being brands like Santa Cruz and Niner and inflate the price accordingly to bring it in line. Would be interesting to know how much of the price hike is due to the price Yeti give Silverfish and how much Silverfish add on.

I’m guessing you are right about the ‘niche’ tax. Shame really, as the Yeti is really very nice……..