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Do you not remember during the pandemic where people were profiteering on everything from graphics cards to flour to cement. I even heard of people buying up all the eggs to then sell on Facebook for more.
I only hope HMRC gets their cut. I don't have a problem with businesses making a profit at all. But I do have a problem with people jumping in to generate artificial shortages for profit adding no value to the product
I'm genuinely baffled by your issue here.
CRC are closing down, and we've all known about this for a while.
If there's something that only CRC had (a Nukeproof chainstay protector say) that you need then why didn't you buy it a month ago?
If you don't need it yet then you won't be able to buy it from CRC in a week or so's time when they're closed down whether they sold them all or not; so you should be pleased that a shop has bought some and they can sell one to you in the future when you do need it.
Hope rotor spacers are available at other retailers.
Hope rotor spacer £5.75, who the hell is gonna pay that
It appears plenty of people have as they have sold 11.
As a side quest I had a google for those spacers. SJS are selling them for £3.10 but then charge £3.50 shipping bringing the price up to £6.60. So a very competitive price after all.
Great to see there are still people out there with an entrepreneurial spirit.
OP - I do agree with you. I dont thibk it sits well with me due to some sense of not wanting to back people into a corner. Also personally i wouldn't sit well with me to buy multiple bargain bikes to sell on ebay rather than letting others have a good bargain bike. Seems the prices are tumbling down mind.
Comparisons with retail are not accurate too. But when has accuracy stopped a good pile on.
I've not been a regular on here long but doesnt surprise me the attitude of folk and the replies you got. Won't be long until we some start finding yet more ways to tell us how wealthy they are.
It appears plenty of people have as they have sold 11.
As a side quest I had a google for those spacers. SJS are selling them for £3.10 but then charge £3.50 shipping bringing the price up to £6.60. So a very competitive price after all.
Lol, facts.
Facts?
Where do you think you are? A tory party meeting?
I’ve not been a regular on here long but doesnt surprise me the attitude of folk and the replies you got. Won’t be long until we some start finding yet more ways to tell us how wealthy they are.
That says more about the size of the chip on your shoulder than anything else
Retail arbitrage baby! Get on TikTok and learn all about it Gramps!
noeffsgiven
Came across one today selling the various 99p nukeproof chainstay protectors for £18.50, that’s near double RRP,.... total rip off merchant
Username doesn't check out.
@captaintomo we're both agreeing with you here, just with the usual levels of jaded sarcasm thrown in.
I see that now
Retail arbitrage baby! Get on TikTok and learn all about it Gramps!
God I hate that kid, cant remember his slogan but he points at his end.
This reminds me when I volunteered for a charity and ended up listing stuff for them on Amazon and eBay, but they'd price stuff like games on the prices on eBay or Amazon, but these were other charities selling the same donated items. It was an artificially inflated market cos all the charities were "accidentally" price setting! Who was going to pay £15-£20 for a boardgame you could buy new for not much more!
Well done that person. Taking a risk on making a few quid. Good business sense and doing us a service as otherwise they might end up in some skip.
Fail to see a problem, the same with tickets. If you want them at original price buy faster and don't buy from touts. After all it is only a concert or a game, not anything important.
Inspired by this thread I may have just over ordered something I did only one of, in anticipation of possible future resale value. I also ordered a relatively cheap item of clothing I don't particularly need, just in case I decide to chuck it on ebay as unused, still in it's packaging at a later date once Chiggle stock is all gone.
Cheers OP 😉
tomo - selective quoting is a bit dim; read my post again and the one it followed to help you understand the context.
If it makes you feel any better, I'm listing our excess stock on eBay and struggling to achieve anywhere near cost price for it. Do I get a prize? Cos I'm certainly not getting the cash. Please can I have a prize.
read my post again
I already have done
I see that now
Do you not remember during the pandemic where people were profiteering on everything from graphics cards to flour to cement.
Not to mention PPE.
But to put it a different way.
You walk into your lbs,
Have you got x?
Yes we have sir.
Excellent, you’ve saved my weekend riding. I really appreciate your service. Btw how much is it?
Twice RRP, sir.
Oh.
I wonder how many wouldn’t see a problem in that?
Has this ever happened?
In morzine one year it pissed it down for the first half of my holiday.
Any mud spike was well over RRP. I didn't buy one out of indignation.
I fell off at least 3 times each day.
In hindsight I should have just bought a pair at the inflated price. I would have had a much better holiday.
I'd buy the thing you want now, before the are all gone and you can't get them at all.
Non steal ad- got any hope hubbed, 29 front wheels you don't want- I'm interested 😉
risk vs reward, and some of this show you how much/little of something sells, I clicked onto Wiggle one morning at the end of November in the early days of Admin, and bought 60+ items of Ron Hill running clothing, multiple lines, various sizes, both genders, at 99p a item, I thought I got a bargain, the RRP was north of £1500, while I'm only £60 out of pocket, and one storage box of stuff waiting to sell, even at 70-50% of RRP I've sold 1 item in 4 months.
So who is actually buying any of this stuff in the first place, which I guess is part of the problem, too many brands, too many lines
bought 60+ items of Ron Hill running clothing, multiple lines, various sizes, both genders,
i worked with a guy who bought hundreds, if not thousands of water bottles very cheaply. It took him years to sell them on Facebook.
no idea if the money made a difference to him of if the odd fiver a year for effing ages just got absorbed into daily expenses.m, but they did sell.
A few years ago after a relative passed away we were left with a huge number of books which were all history books. We gave loads to charity. We sold some direct to a dealer because they the alt was hiring a van to move them. A car load got brought home and sold at prices mainly from £5 - £15. Given the hassle involved in listing, packing, posting, if I was short of cash now I would rather do an extra shift at work than buy stuff sell on eBay or Facebook.
So as I don't see it as free money due to the work involved I have no problems with anyone buying up stock getting sold off and selling it on. I appreciate being able to buy odds and ends on eBay which aren't available anywhere else.
So, you guys are all happy with ticketmaster and others who buy limited stock specifically to scalp legitimate buyers later
in honesty, there are plenty of things in the world that seem exponentially worse to me than someone selling bike bits on eBay - our own government, various wars, climate change and a shedload more - that I find it hard to summon up much indignation.
That’s not the same as being ‘happy with Ticketmaster’ or with western capitalism as a way of life, but I only have a limited stock of righteous fury and I tend to save it for bigger stuff. YMMV.
So, you guys are all happy with ticketmaster and others who buy limited stock specifically to scalp legitimate buyers later?
Meh, false equivalence' are easy to dream up when you are obviously a bit bitter about not ordering a few extra pairs of brake pads.
It's not really the same thing is it, most of the small items people are buying up will probably still be resold at or below normal market value.
The few manics trying to sell things for RRP will fail to flog said items and rethink it I'm sure.
Bah, someone got there before me - NS Bikes Surge Evo frame on ebay, brand new and boxed for £350 (a little over £100 from CRC a couple of months back).
Going to advertise mine for £250 🙂
"So, you guys are all happy with ticketmaster and others who buy limited stock specifically to scalp legitimate buyers later?"
Totally different. Ticket scalps profit from high demand for a limited one time event. Chiggle went bust because they couldn't sell enough stock at RRP.
So who is actually buying any of this stuff in the first place, which I guess is part of the problem, too many brands, too many lines
@dirtyrider The particular problem with Ronhill is its old school running kit brand from the days before park run, old school runners are still wearing the finishers t-shirt from the 2004 London Marathon and will only buy a replacement when something is worn out rather than being this years colour.
gig tickets and the like is totally different, back in noughties my brother knew a few people working at ticketmaster,
they all used to get interest free credit cards, and effectively buy the full front row, best tickets. then flog them on ebay. turning over £000s, that was an internal issue as much as a general tout issue..
personally i'd prefer all tickets to have a name and picture on, with a fixed fee £10-20 to amend the tickets,
chain reaction, wiggle, lots of lines which can be bought elsewhere, I've only missed out on items were i've waited as wanted a lower price, keep an eye on stock levels and buy asap.
I’m still sore at those unscrupulous barstewards who bought up Picasso paintings when they were cheap back in the 1930s and are now selling them off for millions…
To be fair, we aren't talking about Picassos stolen from Jews in the 1930s, or insulin, or flour in Gaza, where there's a tiny supply or people are gonna suffer without them. It's a bunch of little bike parts.
What if someone bought up all the righteous indignation on this thread
There'd be no point, there is an infinite supply...
Plenty of the Evans five tens ended up on ebay and FB too, rather than waste the £5 postage plus pay the returns postage people tried flogging them for a profit.
Bah, someone got there before me – NS Bikes Surge Evo frame on ebay, brand new and boxed for £350 (a little over £100 from CRC a couple of months back).
Actually two sellers on ebay selling the frames for £350 (definitely putting mine on for £250!). One of them has 6 for sale 🙂 Both sellers have a load of what looks like ex-CRC stock for a load more than what it was for sale at CRC for.
risk vs reward, and some of this show you how much/little of something sells, I clicked onto Wiggle one morning at the end of November in the early days of Admin, and bought 60+ items of Ron Hill running clothing, multiple lines, various sizes, both genders, at 99p a item, I thought I got a bargain, the RRP was north of £1500, while I’m only £60 out of pocket, and one storage box of stuff waiting to sell, even at 70-50% of RRP I’ve sold 1 item in 4 months.
So who is actually buying any of this stuff in the first place, which I guess is part of the problem, too many brands, too many lines
I guess the problem you're still going to face (at least until Chiggle finally finished their stock purge) is that as soon as soon as anyone finds a 'bargain' on eBay, they Google it just to check it actually is a good deal (at least I know I would) and the first hit is likely to be CRC or some other discounted outlet.
They're not going to bite for you're 50% off RRP offer while there's still stuff going silly cheap...
and
The particular problem with Ronhill is its old school running kit brand from the days before park run,
it's a bit of both, I assume the admin came in, looked through the sales of particular lines and there was zero sales and it got dumped at, well everything was 99p
but also, who is buying it in the first place, like the other quote says, and if no one is buying it, how does it still exist as a brand?
It’s no different to scalping with tickets.
I buy all 10 sets of Fox Factory forks at £270 each knowing full well that the cheapest other price is £570. At £400 each, people buy from me as I’m the cheapest gig in town.
I buy all 10 front row tickets for £40 each knowing full well I can sell for £80+ each as I’m the only gig in town.
in both cases I’ve deprived a genuine buyer of the chance to buy at the same price I did and will then charge them more for the exact same item having done nothing at all to change or increases its value other than depleting the available supply.
What am I missing?
Not like they were full price last week, then suddenly dropped in price though is it, stuff has been reduced week by week over that last couple of months, and the stuff still didn’t sell, so ‘depriving’ is a bit strong. As above, there’s also a cost to store and post the stock that scalpers don’t have, and there’s no time crunch for buyers. If you buy a ticket off a scalper in a couple of years time for a gig that’s next week, they aren’t gonna put a gig on for you…
Even in your own example, the buyer is getting a better deal than buying at full price.
Difference is that tickets aren't just limited in supply. They have a sell by date and an additional once in a lifetime quality - Taylor Swift will have new songs and new routines for her next tour so if you want to see the 2024 version of Taylor Swift, pay the $$$ now or miss out forever.
This is more like wellies at Glastonbury in 1997. I decided I didn't want to spend out on wellies beforehand and have the hassle of storing them and carrying them and owning them forever, but after several hours of (unforecasted!) torrential rain at the site, I was willing to pay triple 🤷
As with the enterprising glastonbury welly seller, someone had to take the risk and upfront expense of buying up all the Vitus/Nukeproof spares and take the time to list/ship/deal with returns. But if you need a Nukeproof chainstay protector in a few years time, you're going to be ecstatic that Four seasons cycles Abingdon had the forethought to do so.
Not sure why people are so bothered about this!
I’m not overly bothered, but am surprised that many of you are blithely accept a form of price gouging.
blithely accept a form of price gouging.
Buy them, don't buy them. It's not a life or death situation.
this is literally how EVERY business in every country in the world works. But things, sell them for more money... that's the whole ethos of running a business, whether it's small, large, or HUGE...
If you're running a business and suddenly a competitor is going out of business and you can buy their stock for 25% of your normal purchase value, well of course you would... But... you wouldn't then sell it for a fraction of your normal retail price... you'd sell at your usual price to maximise profits...
Personally, I'm still quite salty that I had to wait over a year to get a graphics card as all of the scalpers were buying up all of the available stock and selling it for 100%+ more than retail.....
I never did get a PlayStation 5 as by the time the scalpers had their profit my son had lost interest
The scalpers add absolutely no value and just distort the market. There is a reason why the UK government has prosecuted some ticket scalpers.
I only hope that HMRC gets their cut from the eBay scalpers....