Thinking of taking part this year just wondering if the bike shop get the full voucher price out of the scheme or do they lose a % to be part of it?
Just wondering who is the real beneficiary of this scheme or is it a win win for everyone who takes part?
I think they lose 10%.
I was slightly startled nonetheless to be charged a 10% mark-up on my C2W bike. I can think of few circumstances in which a seller would get away with re-charging to the customer the commission payable to an intermediary who had introduced business the seller would not otherwise get.
But I did not make this point, object or go elsewhere, so in that case the beenficiaries were C2W (which got 10% of the sale), the bike shop (which got a sale) and (just about) me (who got an expensive bike tax free). 🙂
the only time i view it as acceptable to add on the 10% voucher cost is to bikes in sales - as the other option open to the shop under guidelines is that the bike be charged at full price
a local shop to my old shop was adding the 10% on to any cycle scheme bikes- drove lots of customers to us who were all quick to voice this was being done - was ace 😉
The bike shop get 90% of the sale.
There's no reason why your employer can't buy the bike direct and work out the tax deductions themselves. There is no requirement to use any scheme.
I was charged 10% extra, because the margins on cargo bikes aren't huge in the first place.
Most LBS's I visit will give 10% off if you are a regular anyway so they are probably not losing that much more than they would anyway.
They must be benefiting from the scheme bigtime, I have two bikes that I wouldnt have bought with out it, well I might have but they would each have only cost half as much 🙂 And there are thousands of people who wouldn't be on a bike if it wasn't for the fact that they were getting something back from Gordon! Theres also the knock on from the sale with repairs & spares upgrades etc. My LBS loves it!
As Mike says, the scheme is run as a business, not actually by the Government so the money has to come from somewhere. I run the scheme for my employees and we just sort it out ourselves, its not exactly rocket science for a book keeper!